Double Jeopardy
by 01cheers
Summary: Black Sails AU where Charles Vane survives post-ep XXVII. Blatant fix-it fic, written because Vane arguably deserves a better fate (and is sexy as hell)
1. Charles Vane's execution

...and Eleanor, the little b!tch, is not good enough for either him or Woodes Rogers, but if Captain Charlie wants her, I'll let him have her. For the record, I like Vane's antihero arc in the series, including his self-sacrificing death, and have a soft spot for Rogers so a part of me felt like shipping him and Eleanor as her newfound affection made her a better person; but I have a longer-running soft spot for bad boys seeking redemption through cold-hearted women ( _cf. Richard Armitage as Guy of Gisborne_ ) that makes me want to indulge them, at least in fiction. And to this noble end, I may have tweaked Eleanor's cold and mercenary character somewhat to give her enough extra humanity so as to repent her bloodthirsty stance vis-à-vis Vane.

Obviously, by _Charles Vane_ I mean the redeemable-baddie, sexy-beast Black Sails character as played by the charismatic Zach McGowan, not the real life guy who, if his contemporaries are to be believed, was an irredeemably unsavoury fellow. However, I borrow a few real life facts for my plot, notably (1) Woodes Rogers becoming bankrupt and chronically ill and going back to England (he did so in March 1721 but I compress the timeline somewhat in line with Vane's earlier capture in the show) and (2) the historical account of the last year or so of Captain Vane's life (or at least the closest approximation I could splice from two divergent period sources), including ( **here be spoilers, unless you've read pirate history books – or checked Wikipedia** ) him quarrelling with Jack Rackham over battle tactics to the point when Jack abandoned him for good (sorry…) and ending up marooned before being identified by a captain he had once sailed with on board a ship that picked him up, which led to him being executed in Port Royal on Jamaica on March 29, 1721, shortly preceded (or by some accounts, followed) by Jack Rackham (that's poetic justice for you). ( **/spoilery part** )

Most of the M rating comes from the trademark language that the series is liberally laced with (though in reality, swearing back then tended to feature religious blasphemy); but there will be a couple of mildly smutty interludes later on, too.

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xxx

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Ten months, two weeks, and four days, she waited for this occasion. It helped her block out the damp chill of her London prison cell, it distracted her enough from the endless yawing and pitching of the ship on the rough return voyage to stave off seasickness, it gave her comfort on solitary nights when her bold endeavour of winning a place in Rogers' heart seemed headed for failure. It gave her strength to go on.

Now that the day is here, all she wishes is that it were not happening.

Charles Vane stands on the cart, icy calm, bored almost, utterly unconcerned about impending death, his smug expression marred only by the livid bruises left by her fists. His eyes roam over the crowd, more out of habit, it seems, than real curiosity, the only momentary hitch noticeable when his glance sweeps over her, before he looks away again; and even then he betrays no trace of emotion, not even the burnt-out anger that filled his voice for the final words he addressed to her yesterday.

 _He was a cowardly, selfish, treacherous shit who cared only for himself and for you, not at all. You know this, all your life you knew this… He betrayed you, Eleanor. When my men brought him to me, first he begged for mercy. Then he promised to make me rich. But when he realized neither had any effect he promised to deliver you to me, promised to exchange your life for his. That is who your father was, Eleanor, and you know it's true._

She had walked into Vane's cell half prepared to leave him a way of escape; she might have been content with gloating, so long as it made him acknowledge her power; she might have forgiven him on the brink of eternity had he uttered a humble plea for mercy; instead he was unrelenting in delivering his shattering indictment of her father's character and apparent betrayal of her. She may never know for sure how much truth was behind the accusation, but thanks to Vane's words, her claim to Rogers that she is ready to move forward is nothing but hypocrisy and wishful thinking. Knowing her as Vane did, he knew exactly how to hurt her the deepest; knowing her love of appearances and her proneness to selective but dogged self-delusion, he aimed a careful shot to undermine both. Worst of all, by piercing her denial of her father's ugly nature, Vane stripped away her right to hate _him_.

She hated him in those moments still, _no right_ be damned to hell, her primal howling akin to the blind fury of a wounded beast, and reeling from the blow, did her best to deliver the worst retaliation she could muster, from punching those seemingly imperturbable chiseled features when he offered no resistance to assembling the insults she knew would hurt _him_ the most. Knowing how he had once striven to become a better man for her sake, suspecting that he might not have completely abandoned the idea even at death's door, she did her damned bloody best to verbally strip him of humanity, of dignity, of self-worth in her scathing assessment.

Now, hours of anguish and a sleepless night later, her hatred has subsided into a sullen, dejected bitterness at the world instead of Vane. She can try to delude herself all she wants, but her own coldness springs from being Vane's equal in having been deprived of parental love. Her mother she can barely recall; her father, it turns out, never cared a single fucking bit about her. Woodes cares, in his own reserved, detached, genteel way; at least when he is not summoning his high-born Bristol-dwelling wife in fevered delirium; but this reminder of his family ties that she had tried for days to dismiss as an unalterable condition of their liaison has come to poison the romantic, ridiculously earnest view of it that she had managed to cling on to hitherto. It had been easy to dismiss Woodes' marriage when it was only a dry statement of fact; but hearing another woman's name hover on his lips in a tone of forlorn yearning even as he was looking at her has cut her deep. She is on her own in this world, and the one creature who once unconditionally offered to share her life is standing under the gibbet.

And now this man, who can feign nonchalance before the crowd with a noose around his neck, but still betrayed shards of passion – mangled and embittered, but not yet dead – face-to-face with her a few hours ago; now he will sink into oblivion. She will never see him again, except as a rotting corpse. Never speak to him, seeing those steely grey eyes soften at her words; never hear that low, urgent voice, that used to make her weak at the knees. Never feel his hot skin against hers…

No.

She shakes her head, trying to clear her thoughts but only making herself dizzy with sickening dread. She is the author of this, his judge, jury and executioner, no matter what the present public spectacle may purport to represent. She even lied to both Rogers and Max to cement the impression that his death was a done deed. Still, Vane made his choice when he murdered her father, and she made hers by exacting retribution; to go back on it now, to give in and spare his life would be a humiliating sign of weakness at a moment when her need to assert her authority is the most dire.

Vane himself seems to welcome this grisly conclusion, his nonchalance gradually giving way to impatience. He spots someone in the crowd who has been trying to catch his eye – standing in the gallery at the back, all Eleanor sees is an uneven plane of shaven and hairy heads, but she lacks the elevation to see the faces – and gives a curt, barely-there shake of the head. _No._ Who is he signalling to? Is the proposition a rescue attempt, as she might fear – although the sentiment that makes her bite the inside of her lip is more akin to hope? She has lived for this day, her ultimate, consummate vengeance, only to taste the poisoned fruit of an empty victory in the end. Yet another minute or so of this, and her resolve may crumble so far as to regret not having paid someone herself to sabotage the execution.

It is too late to undo this.

Is it?

It is a relief when the sordid show wraps up; she has just about made it to the end without crumbling, when Vane decides to end it on his terms, his voice rising above the murmur of the crowd, confident and authoritative.

"These men, who brought me here today do not fear me; they brought me here today because they fear you, because they know that my voice, the voice that refuses to be enslaved, once lived in you, and may yet still. They brought me here today to show you death and use it to frighten you into ignoring that voice…but know this: we are many, they are few. To fear death is a choice, and they can't hang us all."

She is barely aware of his meaning, too lost, ironically, in his literal, living voice. The last time she has heard it.

Except that he has reserved his most flippant tone for a final salute as he nods to the provost. "Get on with it, motherfucker."

In a few more seconds, it will be over.

"Stop!"

Ice shooting through her veins, her hand clamps over her treacherous lips when it hits her that she was the one to shout it out.

And somewhere at the very back of her mind, there is an insane wish that her cry may shatter the spell and that all this may reveal itself to be nothing more than a nightmare of her own creation.

It is too late.

The horse has bolted, and Vane is left hanging in the noose, his right leg twitching; she does not want to see this but cannot look away. The creeping dizziness is back, and she wonders distantly if she is about to irredeemably embarrass herself by fainting when a movement in the crowd jerks her alert again.

Not one, not two, but at least a dozen men, heretofore undistinguishable from the crowd, are advancing toward the gibbet, cutlasses at the ready. Whether Vane wanted them to intervene or not is, by now, irrelevant; by now, _she_ wants them to intervene, and all she can do is to bite her lip harder, until she tastes blood, so as not to shout encouragement. The Redcoats are confused and visibly shaken; a couple of ineffectual, misdirected shots ring out, the crowd panicking in an attempt to seek cover before the officer orders them to stop firing; at this close range they ought to fight it out with steel. But combat tactics are lost on these untrained, inexperienced conscripts; rather than rally around their officer, they scatter before a superior force, the officer also compelled to scamper to save his hide. As if in a daydream, Eleanor watches as Vane's body – _Vane_ , alive still, if his wretched gasp is an indication – is cut down from the thick rope and hoisted up on a cart – the same cart that was his scaffold until a minute ago – before the gang and the rattling conveyance tear out of the filthy square.

In the space of a few moments, they are gone.

Standing shakily amid this shambles that, until five minutes ago, was shaping up to be the bleak pinnacle of her bitter triumph, all Eleanor feels is overwhelming relief, no matter how she might resent herself for such spinelessness.

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TBC

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Endnotes:

The opening-line timeline is approximate based on RL and show events; I just wanted Eleanor to keep an exact count.

Vane's two quotes are taken directly from his lines in the episode, but I had to shorten the first one in flashback.

I have the complete plot, well, plotted, but need a few days to double-check series material and real facts before I go on typing it up; my dear readers in previous fandoms would know that I am something of a research nerd. Still, what they also know is that I have never, ever left a WIP hanging.

Comments of any kind, including factual nitpicking vis-à-vis the series later on, where my memory is sometimes fuzzy, will be greatly appreciated :)


	2. Farewells

First of all, a heartfelt thank you to queenfrizz30 for reading and letting me know you liked the story so far. I am having fun plotting and writing it, but it makes the experience much more enjoyable knowing that there are people who have fun reading it!

On with the show… this endless-argument chapter is something of a necessary evil ;)

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xxx

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"What the bloody hell were you thinking?!"

Woodes Rogers does not normally resort to blasphemy, at least in the company of women. For that matter, he does not normally allow himself to betray anger in any manner whatsoever. That he has foregone appearances now shows her how dangerously close she has come to losing his regard. As if she did not see it already.

"How could you do something so- so- " he seems out of breath; he is still a long way from a full recovery, and part of his flustered state could be due to poorly physical condition; but she spoke to him in the preceding days when he was faring even worse, and his voice was a good deal steadier then. "So damn _stupid_ ," he finally blurts out, apparently deciding to do away with niceties altogether, "as to stage a public execution at a time when the city is at immediate risk from a pirate attack, when our soldiers have been decimated by disease and when there is already growing dissent among the populace! Did you think for one moment as to what the consequences might be? Or were you too busy waging your silly personal battle against a lover who wronged you?"

If she had not been racked by two conflicting kinds of remorse already, for trying to see Vane dead and for doing it behind Rogers' back, she would have snapped at his callous attack. Her motives, and whatever heartbreak she may have gone through to arrive at those motives, have been dismissed as thoughtless folly.

Not content with upbraiding her thus, he goes on.

"Were you not present at our council meetings, did you not hear that Spain is only waiting for a good moment to strike; did you not see the Spanish letters I showed you? Did it not occur to you that we cannot possibly resist both the Spaniards and the pirates in our present condition, and seeing our weakness Spain may well decide to use any pretext to attack us, to renew full-scale hostilities? And yet instead of redoubling efforts to strengthen our defences, instead of rallying ships to go after the treasure that Rackham and his accomplices stole, you were staging this ludicrous tribunal without any regard to the aftermath?"

He is going too far with this babbling. Another moment, and he will brand her a fucking traitor for trying to hang a pirate.

"I told you," she grits through set teeth. "You knew I wanted him executed. When he declined to sign the plea that would have him sent to London, I told you what I was about to do." Never mind that she had done what she could to entice Vane to decline; he would never have gone for it anyway, stubborn bastard that he was. _Is_.

"When?" Rogers' voice has gone from indignant to chilly, almost contemptuous.

"Before the tribunal started. I came here and told you, as I am telling you now, that I believed – I still believe –" Now that is a dubious truth, even if she says so herself, "that this was the best way I could protect you – "

"Nonsense!" The anger is back in a flash. "You never really asked for my consent to this execution. You knew I was delirious and in no position to respond. What sort of romantic nonsense is this? If you had truly cared a flying – the tiniest bit about protecting me, you could have waited a few days until I was recovered enough to discuss it with me, not try to get your way taking advantage of my fever."

It is hard to say what hurts more, the fact that he is able to judge her so harshly or that there is a great deal of truth in his words.

"I am sorry." Maybe the best thing is to admit her guilt, such as it is, to dispell his anger and move on.

It does not work.

"You damn well should be. And you could not even hang him properly!" He gives off a contemptuous snort. "So now Vane is alive and free, able to attack us at will, and you made a mockery of the proceedings by shouting for it to stop!"

So someone has already ratted her out. No surprise considering how most of the council members see her, but Rogers taking their side over hers is truly dispiriting news. Could it be that his indignation comes from jealousy? If so, surely she can think of a glib excuse. She does her best to shut her mind to the treacherous notion that he may not be entirely wrong.

"I saw the pirates advancing, I wanted the Redcoats to deal with them before the execution could proceed." At least her capacity for easy lies is undiminished.

"That's not what I heard." At face value, his words would be added proof of jealousy, had it not been for the mocking tone. And once again, it is the truth underneath that ignites her anger. That, and the plain injustice.

" _You_ should be accusing me of weakness! You who were summoning your wife even as I kept vigil by your side! Why didn't you get her to come along and tend to you? Is she too fine and dainty for this filthy place?"

There is a momentary spark of cold disdain in his eyes that hurts her more than everything he has said to this point, that tells her with perfect eloquence that she will never be his equal, that her declarations of love would never be reciprocated; that the world he sees himself as truly belonging to and the world he has chosen to temporarily inhabit are entirely separate in his mind.

"I gave no pledges to you, Eleanor, beyond restoring your freedom in exchange for your counsel. If you chose, at one point, to extend our relations beyond the official realm, to whatever end, it was your decision to make. If you accuse me of being carried away in the heat of the moment so as to allow it to happen, I readily admit my guilt, but you cannot accuse me of enticing you with empty promises."

No, she cannot accuse him of anything, besides being a heartless fucking weasel. How could this be the man she had come to consider, for all intents and purposes, her lover, her partner, her ally, the one that she had resolved to give her heart to, asking for little more than a modicum of affection in return? _To whatever end_ , indeed; again, had the implicit suggestion of a mercenary motive been entirely unfounded, it might have rankled less, but if ever in her life Eleanor Guthrie had come close to being unselfish, it was with him.

He seems to realise that he has gone too far, but abject apologies are a long way from coming. Instead he comes back from dangerous affairs of the heart to the business aspect.

"It does not matter. What matters is, when I offered you the chance to avoid prison, or worse," he gives her a meaningful stare that makes her squeeze her hands into tight fists. As if she really needed a reminder of how low she had sunk by the time they met, how close she herself had been to a hangman's noose. As if she had not spent every day afterwards on her best behaviour, doing her best to be ladylike and reasonable and honest with him so as to erase that shameful memory. "I was counting on your knowledge of the local scene to help introduce order. I thought you were smart enough not to use your position to settle petty scores in a way that could undermine all our achievements."

He sounds calm by now, but it is her turn to be furious. How many times can he come at her with the same fucking accusation, with only slight differences in wording? And what if she could not help herself in Vane's case? Does everything else she has done for him, from securing the pirates' acceptance of the pardon to playing nurse round-the-clock when he fell ill, amount to nothing?

"All our achievements, indeed? You must have an extremely high opinion of Captain Vane, sir, if you believe that his survival will single-handedly undermine them all." She does not know where the _sir_ has come from; it was a silly, peevish thing to say… but certainly not unprovoked by now.

"Some errors of judgement matter more than others. You obviously think so yourself if indeed your ardent desire to see Vane swing is the result of your father's death…"

Her rage is so palpable as to make him trail off. If he dares say another word, if he dares say that Richard Guthrie was a lowlife scoundrel who had it coming, she will launch herself at him and fucking throttle him.

Instead, he just turns away from her.

There is nothing to be gained from continuing this distasteful, acrimonious scene. She turns on her heel, strides to the door, and slams it shut behind her.

xxx

He is there to see her the next morning, in calmer spirits; seeing him still unsteady on his feet provokes an instantaneous twinge in her heart, but it is gone as soon as he speaks.

"Eleanor, I must apologise for my conduct yesterday."

His words are meant to placate, but the gulf that opened between them yesterday seems only wider now, more final; here is a man on a mission, come to deliver a message rather than have a heart-to-heart talk.

"The news of the debacle involving Captain Vane was, as you will have gathered, rather unwelcome, and I behaved toward you in a manner unbecoming someone who calls himself a gentleman."

In more ways than one, indeed.

"It is, in truth, a setback…"

Surely he is not about to start whining about consequences all over again?

"…and it comes at a very unfortunate moment, in terms of where I find myself."

Here, at least, is something new.

"Not only am I still a long way from full recovery, if doctors are to be believed, but my position and my authority here has become so tenuous as to be at risk. You know I've been petitioning the Crown for additional funding…"

She knows, she has seen those letters, too; helped pen some of them, in fact.

"There has not been a single reply, and by now it is a matter of months if not weeks before the funds run out, what with finding the labour and supplies to rebuild the fort when almost all the conscripts are taken ill. I am beginning to think that the only way I can secure more money is to go back and present my plea in person, and had it not been for the danger of a Spanish attack I'd be on my way already."

Not a word about her accompanying him, of course.

"And with the councillors all united against you, more so now when they think you are reckless and manipulative…"

Is it really what the councillors think, she wonders bleakly, or what Rogers himself has come to think?

"I cannot guarantee that I can secure you a continued place on the council in my absence. And given my own precarious health and dwindling wealth, I cannot even say for certain when I'll be back."

It sounds like _whether_ more than _when_.

"I am truly sorry, Eleanor." For the first time, there is a shade of genuine sentiment in his soft voice. "Until a month or so ago it seemed as if we were making headway, that we were just one or two battles away from a decisive victory over the pirates and from there, to establishing law and order in Nassau, and then it all went to hell. I did not think it would come to this. And I would very, very much like to be able to guarantee a safe and secure position for you but I cannot; and I have no money to – "

"This was never about money," she counters, more harshly than she intended.

"I know," he replies softly. "I just wish – "

"I have funds to live on for the foreseeable future." She does not elaborate; if he really cares about her well-being he will not press her for details. There is no great need for him to know that for years, she had converted a sizeable proportion of her profit into bills of exchange payable by French merchant houses, which she had contrived to forward to the French Louisiana for collection and deposit, that she could use in leaner times. It might not make her exorbitantly rich but would, as a minimum, keep her out of brothels.

"And for what it's worth, I am sorry for what happened between you and Vane that has tormented you so much as to bring matters to this juncture." So he never bought her _ready to move forward_ speech, after all. "I just hope for your sake that you do not go on through life with this hunger for vengeance in your heart."

"I don't know." This time, she is even less certain of the outcome than when she was about to venture into her condemned lover's cell.

"You are a very clever woman, Eleanor. I have no doubt that you will be successful one way or another."

There is no mockery in his voice; for once it sounds wistful, and when he takes a step toward her and takes her hand, there is a shade of the old longing in his eyes. If only she had the energy, the determination to fight, she might yet bring him back, rekindle his affections, reawaken his lust, devise a way to turn around the sorry state of affairs in Nassau, through scheming and stratagems and plain daring, enough to keep the councillors at bay and to show the powers that be in London that money sent to Rogers would be a good investment… but she has spent so long fighting and scheming and surviving and trying to get ahead in the world that by now, after the latest setbacks and shake-ups, the fight is gone out of her. If an adventurer so cunning and intrepid as Woodes Rogers is feeling defeated in the face of the odds, perhaps she might be forgiven for the same sentiment. She just stands next to him, her shoulders slumped, her fingers limp in his hand.

"I'll see you at the next Council meeting, my dear."

It sounds almost tender, and the light kiss on her lips that follows can easily pass for a gesture of reconciliation, and the Council meeting is only in two days' time; and yet she cannot help the ache in her throat at how it all feels oddly like a farewell blessing.

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TBC

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PS

I am duly ashamed of my implicit slander of Woodes Rogers' character. He was a very decent, if somewhat headstrong, gentleman if history is to be believed, and here I am making him into a selfish, petulant pr!ck, and ruining the sweet romance his Black Sails incarnation had with Miss Guthrie. In reality he had no qualms about hanging pirates; under his authority, a few of those who had accepted the pardon but gone back on their word were tried by an Admiralty Court and hanged in Nassau on December 9, 1718, which must have been the precedent for Vane's trial and hanging in the series. So the line of reasoning I make him follow here, where he is angry at Eleanor for making Vane's rushed trial into a personal vendetta, is not entirely defensible from the real life point of view; but needs must, as they say, and it was the least implausible way he could give the young lady her dose of rejected-love medicine. Other than that I did my best to stick close to the factual circumstances, ie him rebuilding the fort, being short of soldiers and of money to fend off Spain and the pirates, and unsuccessfully petitioning the Crown for additional funds until accumulated frustration at the lack of support and increasingly poor health drove him back to England in the spring of 1721.


	3. Vindication

A big thank you to my dear readers who commented and followed the story in the meantime. It really makes my day, and gives me an added incentive. As some of my old-fandom pen-pals knew, the part I enjoy as much as, if not more than, the writing itself is putting together the plot treatment, a sort of long and detailed summary, which I then endlessly revise and gradually use to type up full chapters. The point of my mentioning it is that, left to my own devices, I'd be tempted to forever tinker with it and take ages to post as a result; but knowing that readers may be waiting, I do my best to hurry up.

Speaking of which, apologies for the long delay this time. I hoped to continue sooner, but got bogged down in (1) rewatching the show, as my memory of the first two seasons was fuzzy by now, and (2) looking through my stash of books on the real history of pirates from that period. While doing the latter, I drove myself up a wall with timeline issues as I tried to reconcile my plot both with the show and with reality, to the point where I had to make a three-column table to clear it up. Bottom line is, there is no way to make it all fully fit – thank you very much, dear scriptwriters, for killing Charles Vane half a year before his real capture and more than two years before he really met his fate! : [ – but I managed to limit the discrepancies to a couple of judicious tweaks, which I will explain when the story gets there. The good news is, I kept polishing up the plot treatment in the meantime, and I believe that the rewatch and re-read have done it a lot of good; and now that the research "homework" is out of the way, I will definitely post the following chapters faster.

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xxx

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Seated, or rather slumped, at a desk in her room all afternoon, looking out the open window at the harbour beyond the low rooftops and the palm fronds swaying in the breeze, Eleanor has barely noticed how the intense turquoise hue of the sea gradually gave way to a pearly grey, then flared up into a coppery bronze before slowly fading to a midnight blue streaked with silver moonlight.

Three days ago she felt victorious, about to exact vengeance on a ruthless murderer who wronged her, and in the process vanquish whatever last shreds of feeling she might have been harbouring toward Charles Vane that were not disgust or cold indifference. Now she is crushed, her victory as transient as a sandcastle built at the low tide mark, her return to power in Nassau proving itself short-lived and her emotions in disarray.

With Rogers' impending departure it looks like she is about to lose her place on the council and her say in the official affairs; and yet with a legitimate governor and government in place, she cannot go back to her fence trading days even if she wanted to. As soon as Rogers sails, she will be left with no authority, no business, no safety and no friends among the players who hold power… or even just friends. Anyone she might have once named in that category has been used and betrayed by her at one time or another – all for the greater good, she would tell herself; well, a hell of a lot of good it will do her now. For someone who made a habit of thinking ahead, preparing for future eventualities, she has really done a remarkable job burning all the bridges around her, so that she is now left marooned on an inhospitable rock, figuratively speaking; without any means of escape that she might consider acceptable, or even feasible.

She could not possibly live with the humiliation of remaining in Nassau as a private citizen, isolated and despised where she was once respected and feared. She could, in theory, go to her father's relatives in Boston, but considering how they detested Richard Guthrie, she has little doubt that she will meet with a frosty reception, or more likely with outright rejection, and she is not about to embark on a voyage knowing _that_ to be the likely prospect at its end. Or else she could try her luck as a fence in any remaining pirate haven, although now that pirates seem to be on the retreat all over the Caribbean the only one that springs to mind is Tortuga, and it is sure to have its contingent of fences and power brokers well staffed with no interest in accepting an interloper. Selling herself into marriage in exchange for a modicum of safety is unthinkable. Maybe she could go to the coastal colonies, or to the French Louisiana where she keeps her savings, and carve out some kind of business there. Run a saloon, at least she has plenty of experience at that, she thinks sourly. One way or another, her life in Nassau seems over.

For years she tried to uphold her status on this island at any cost, be it as a pirate fence or a legitimate counsellor, but the harder she has tried to claw it back the faster it kept slipping away, like sand squeezed in her fist. Why does she keep thinking of sand? Max's words come back to her; _the sands have shifted_ , indeed, and she has lost her footing; and with no one left who might care for her, she can expect no helping hand to get her up. Has there ever been anyone, she wonders, who might have genuinely cared for her, without a mercenary motive? Max came closest, perhaps; not much of a consolation given the money Eleanor paid her and considering that even in entreating Eleanor to leave, Max was looking to escape her own demons and improve her position in the world.

 _No one except Vane_.

She bangs her fist against the desk in frustration at the unbidden thought; it is all over, and now because of him, even the memory of someone she thought had come to care about her has been tarnished. True, for years she herself had resented her father as an unloving, treacherous, worthless figurehead even as her business depended on him as a necessary evil. She had even plotted his final downfall after she had had to rebuild that business without him; but secretly she had yearned for acknowledgement, and her hostility toward her father crumbled as soon as he dangled the sweet prospect of acceptance before her. She went back on all her vengeful resolutions and convinced herself to let bygones be bygones as soon as he appeared to show respect and love for her, at once grateful and remorseful for having wished him ill earlier. And then when Vane killed him, the old guilt fuelled her mourning into soul-crushing torment.

Was what Vane said about her father true? Now that the wound has been reopened, she will have no peace until she knows for sure, one way or another. If it is a lie she can at least put Vane out of her mind for good; if true… she will have to find the strength to live with it but she will have the calm, no matter how bleak, that comes with final certainty. But if indeed she is about to leave Nassau for good, now may be her only chance to try and get hold of a witness; and those who witnessed her father's death are not easily reached and are unlikely to have mercy upon her.

And speaking of mercy, the person she will have to ask for help finding them will likely have even less.

xxx

"What is it, Eleanor?"

Max is not happy to see her and makes no attempt to conceal it. Her round copper-tinged face is expressionless, her hazel eyes staring straight at Eleanor, her sensuous lips pressed tightly together. Say what she might about being Eleanor's friend and about having long forgotten the heart-breaking end to their liaison, Eleanor suspects that Max will not pass up a chance if not to humiliate Eleanor openly, then at least to gloat.

Well, she is happy to provide that chance if it gets her what she came for.

"I need your help."

For an instant the other woman's unreadable face seems overrun by shadows of conflicting emotions: smug satisfaction, concern, contempt – before it settles into the habitual tranquil mask.

"Come in," Max gestures as she turns to walk back into Eleanor's old study, and Eleanor follows.

"So, what do you want?" Max asks when they are seated opposite each other at the desk.

"I need your help…" Eleanor begins again, and falters. It is not an easy subject to broach, nor an easy request to make.

"And why should I help you?" The chill in Max's voice is still tinged with echoes of old pain. "Especially now when you have a powerful friend in the Governor who can help you much more than I?"

Not with _this_.

"Max, it is not something he can do. And speaking of him, he may not be much of a friend to me for much longer." She catches Max's eyes widening for the briefest instant. "And because…" her shoulders sag, "because I stand nothing to gain from what I am about to ask for, except for a lot of heartbreak either way."

Max does not answer at once. "What is it?"

"I… I wanted to ask you if you know someone who was at the fort when my father… was killed."

Max leans back in the chair with what looks like exasperation.

"You nearly got him hanged already. To try and hang him again you'll have to catch him first. And before you ask, Eleanor, I won't help you look for him. Even if I knew where he was." That last sentence sounds enough like an afterthought to make Eleanor wonder how much Max might really know of Vane's whereabouts, but Eleanor has more pressing concerns to address first.

"I wasn't talking about… Vane. I am looking for someone – anyone else who may have been there."

"Why?"

"He told me… Vane told me when I went to see him in prison, that my father… my father had… behaved like a coward before his death, that he had offered to deliver me in exchange for his freedom. I want to know if it is true."

"He is dead already, why does it matter to you now?" Somehow Max's voice sounds less cold, more curious.

"It may be my last chance," Eleanor says with a sigh she had not expected to make. "When Rogers leaves I'll have no place here. I'll just have to go and take my chances somewhere else." Max is too taken aback by this admission to respond, so Eleanor adds, in a touch of bleak flattery, "You said it before, how the sands shift in this place. You win, Max, and I've lost. I wanted to have power in Nassau no matter what it took, and I lost everything in the process. And now I've lost that same position that I was fighting to keep, and before I leave I just want to know what happened then."

Of all possible reactions Eleanor might have expected of Max, _thoughtful_ was not one of them. Yet when a few moments pass and Max has kept her silence, Eleanor wonders if Max is merely relishing her triumph, and if so, if she should grovel and beg some more to win the other woman's support.

"Max, I know you say it no longer matters, but not a day has gone by when I did not feel sorry for what happened to you at the hands of Vane's crew. I swear I wanted to do all I could to protect you, I would have never left you in danger so he and his men could-"

She is surprised at how vehemently Max answers; and even more surprised at the thrust of her argument.

"Vane had nothing to do with what happened." Before Eleanor can register her surprise, Max goes on. "I wanted to leave because I did not feel safe, no matter what you said. Anne Bonny saw me leave the brothel and told Vane, and he caught me, well, he and Anne did, they took my clothes and locked me up. And then they questioned me, yes, and they punched me a few times, yes, and yes, I was scared and angry, but it was you I was angry at, for refusing to go away with me. And then he saw that I was telling the truth, that I did not have any of the pearls, and wanted to let me go."

"What?!" Eleanor gasps before Max can continue.

"He wanted to let me go," Max repeats, as if there were any chance Eleanor had not heard. "He never even fucked me. He ordered Rackham to get me to a boat at nightfall and take me away and set me free. I heard the two of them talking and Rackham argued that they should kill me, and Vane was against it. And then at night when Jack was taking me to the beach, the crew caught us. You know the rest."

Eleanor is lost for words, her mind reeling. So what Max had said to her then, at that hellish moment, was true. _He did not do it,_ you _did_. And that night when Vane was with her, he really had no idea of what was happening, convinced that Max had already escaped.

"So you see, you've fucked over both your former lover and the woman you replaced him with. Except that he never got over you, until now, I suppose. You know, I offered him advice once, on how to get over you," she adds, as if there was any way to twist the proverbial dagger any more painfully; three years later, _a dish best eaten cold_ , indeed. "And he refused. Now I suppose he is better off with what you did to him, so he can be free."

"Give me-" Eleanor starts, but her voice gives out, "give me some rum. Please."

Max, the dutiful hostess for once this evening, brings the flask over; Eleanor notices that she sets only one mug on the desk, as if there was any need to reinforce the point that Eleanor's present heartbreak leaves her cold. No matter; Eleanor fills the mug and drinks from it in desperate gulps, until even Max looks concerned.

"Are you sure you want to hear how your father died?" Max asks when Eleanor has set down the mug.

After what she has just heard, what can possibly be worse? "Yes."

"Well then, let me tell you what I heard from England."

"England?" Her mind is spinning from the rum, but surely England has nothing to do with her father's -

"England the man. Ned England who used to be Vane's quartermaster before Jack." Eleanor vaguely recalls him, and the taunts he used to get for not being ruthless enough. "He left Vane's crew after he was wounded in the leg and was bedridden with a fever for a month, which is when Rackham took his place. His leg healed but he had a bad limp for a long time, so was not much good at sailing. He went on to join Hornigold, but when Vane captured the fort Ned broke with Hornigold's crew and went back to Vane, and back to the fort. When Vane got out of the fort and went after Flint, England stayed in Nassau, and he was a regular at the brothel so I heard it from him. Others from Vane's crew said the same thing after they came back from Charleston, so it was common knowledge at the time – though of course you were on your way to England and had no way of hearing it."

"Hearing what?" Eleanor fills and drains the mug again, in growing dread at what she is to hear next.

"What happened to Richard Guthrie when Vane's men caught him. They brought him to the fort and Vane, who was drunk already, started questioning him about where you and Flint had taken the girl from Low's ship. He did not know, Richard Guthrie did not know, and he got scared and started whimpering, and Vane got furious and started punching him, and he was whimpering even more." Eleanor cannot tell if Max is relishing this, sitting as she is with her head bent down and her eyes squeezed shut. "And then he started insulting you, your father did, for being the one to blame for his capture because you'd run off with the girl, and when he called you a stupid cunt the men started laughing and Vane completely lost it and punched him so hard he broke his neck. Or else it broke when he hit the floor, either way, he was dead when he hit the ground. And then Vane drank himself out of his mind and sat there bellowing that he hated all the Guthries, and then…"

Max is saying something else but Eleanor does not hear; she has sunk to the floor and is sitting there propped against a desk leg, doing her best not to throw up.

Whether from concern for her or for the state of her carpet, Max steps away and comes back moments later with a glass of water, which she sets on the floor by Eleanor's side. A few moments pass as Eleanor is sipping the water when nothing is said.

"I am sorry, Eleanor," Max says finally, and for the first time this evening there is no coldness in her voice. "There was no easy way to tell you this, or for you to have learned this, but this is what happened. I suppose after he mentioned it to you, you would have suspected anyway." All Eleanor can do is nod her agreement.

"Where is he now?" she asks when she feels strong enough to speak again.

"I told you, I…" Max starts, but Eleanor cuts in.

"Not Vane. England."

"He has not been at the brothel for a long time. What I heard was, he refused to take the pardon and is now in hiding, they say he has been trying to assemble a crew to go to the East Indies."

"In hiding where?"

"Eleanor…" Max sounds stern, but more concerned than contemptuous. "I know you have no reason to believe me, but I have no reason to lie to you. If you go looking for him, there is no telling what may happen to you. You remember what happened to _me_ , and if no one had stopped those men, I would not have been talking to you now."

"Max, I must talk to him. I do believe you, I just want to hear it from someone who was there himself." She is back in the chair by now, pouring herself a third mug; if she is to survive what she just heard, she might as well numb the pain for a start. "You don't have to go with me, just tell me where to look for him." The part she leaves unsaid is that, unlike Max, she used to be – still is – an authority here. Surely that counts for something in the mind of whoever might think of assaulting her.

"I will go with you, but only as far as I can." Max's face is set with what Eleanor suspects is deeply-ingrained terror. "Last thing I heard was, he was looking for crewmen at the Wrecks, and camped out there."

Eleanor is taken aback, if only for an instant. Still, she drains the last of the mug and nods.

"Very well; take me there."

xxx

They start out on the trail leading west of Nassau, Max carrying a lantern until they get to the narrow beach framed by jagged rocks. She then sets the lantern on the ground behind a boulder and gestures to Eleanor to go on; the moonlight is bright enough to see what lies ahead.

"Eleanor, you really should think about it," Max starts in an urgent whisper after they have taken a few more steps. "At least wait until the morning, why do you want to go now?"

But she is too distraught, too desperate – and, truth be told, too drunk by now – to heed the voice of reason. "You said it yourself, Max, he was looking to leave. _I_ am looking to leave. I may never get another chance-" She started talking in a whisper to mirror Max's, but her voice has now risen to its normal pitch. Max pulls on her sleeve in terror as there is a distant sound of feet scrambling on the rocks.

"Go," Eleanor whispers again, turning to her. "I was asking for this. You don't have to stay."

Max takes a step back, then another, then she turns away from Eleanor and melts into the darkness where the boulders meet the sandy beach, and Eleanor is left alone.

But not for long.

She has barely taken half a dozen steps toward the rocks when she hears impact on the sand behind her, and before she can turn, she feels the sharp blade under her chin.

She was asking for this, she reminds herself of her own words a minute ago; in more ways than one.

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TBC

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Notes:

Some of the things I found out re Woodes Rogers since posting the previous chapter make my take on him there even more of a stretch than I thought; then again, I would have no business writing fanfic if I could not come up with theories to explain them away.

For one thing, Rogers and his wife were estranged from about 1712; but I might argue that he wanted a reconciliation and did not tell Eleanor about the separation in the hope of winning Sarah back.

Also, rather than sending him straight back to England on the brink of a war with Spain and two years before he really went there, I figured it would be better to use his six-week stay in Charlestown ìn 1720 (notionally to recover from illness, but it was not helped by him getting wounded in a duel with a captain he had known in Nassau "caused by disputes between the two in New Providence"); so I will just assume that he changed his mind in favour of a shorter trip after his chat with Eleanor, and ask you to go with it.

Finally, and most egregiously, I now have reasons to believe that had he really captured Vane and had Eleanor been real and hanged him, Rogers would have been infinitely grateful rather than pissed off, as he bore a huge grudge against Vane. For most of 1718, he and Vane played a splendid game of cat-and-mouse, and I gained a newfound respect for the real Vane for his resourcefulness and big brass balls, what with the way he repeatedly screwed around with Rogers, for lack of a better term. He took a pardon from Capt Pearse of HMS _Phoenix_ to escape a tight spot in April 1718, only to go back on his word; then escaped from Nassau on July 24th in the manner we saw in the show, albeit without Blackbeard (after politely writing to Rogers offering to give up piracy – _again_ – if he were allowed to keep his recent loot, ending it with "we await a speedy answer"); then had the balls to write to Rogers _again_ threatening to team up with Blackbeard to attack Nassau (Blackbeard was not keen when Vane visited him on Ocracoke, though; the poor guy had less than two months to live, anyway); all in the middle of a spectacularly successful year for him piracy-wise. In the meantime, Rogers, hell-bent on catching Vane, sent Hornigold  & Co to Green Turtle Cay in September, but they missed Vane and instead caught the nine pirates who were hanged on Dec 9. And here I was, implying that he would be worried about the PR fallout :P But as I said earlier, someone had to cut Eleanor down to size, and reckless insubordination seemed as good a reason as any. Maybe Rogers really wanted to send Vane to London for a better-publicised trial and hanging…

Edward England, on the other hand, really was Vane's quartermaster before Jack Rackham, as of March 1718 and until sometime in the summer, before he went off to the East Indies in late 1718 after Rogers' arrival. And my remark re him not being ruthless enough comes from him apparently being known as relatively humane.

Finally, my take on the position of the Wrecks is purely arbitrary. I tried to check for any real life parallels but it appears to be a 100% invented spot, so I picked a location that suited my purposes. Looking at a map of New Providence would put it at Brown's Point, about a mile west of Nassau.


	4. Captive

(I said I'd post quicker now, didn't I?)  
This chapter is relatively short, though by no means sweet. Putting up warnings for fic based on _Black Sails_ seems vaguely redundant; but for the readers' sake, I do warn that this chapter involves attempted, albeit unconsummated, rape.

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xxx

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It is all a blur; the effects of three large mugs of rum drunk in quick succession and without food are clouding her brain, which may be for the best considering the circumstances; but by the same token, they slow down her reactions, negating any chance of escape. Her attacker now has a hand grabbing the nape of her neck, his other hand still pressing the knife against her windpipe, as he shoves her in the direction of the rocks. Any moment now she will stumble and cut her throat open on the sharp steel; maybe it is better to end it like that. She has no idea who this creature is, but there is little doubt as to what he must want from her. So much for her status and position of authority rendering her immune.

Presently she sees a faint glimmer seeping through an opening between the rocks several yards ahead; she squints, trying not to let the light blind her to the uneven path under her feet. The choice keeps playing out in her head, oddly impersonal, as if she were thinking of someone else. Should she fall on the knife and get it over with, or should she drag it out in the hope of making it through this alive? After all, Max survived a similar ordeal at the hands of a feral mob and lived to tell about it; albeit seeing Max earlier that same night showed her how much of the damage was still there, lurking beneath the smooth veneer. And all that despite Eleanor being there, furious enough to stop it, and with enough leverage over Vane to keep them off Max once they had backed away.

She stumbles for real, but before the knife can cut her deeper than a superficial scratch, her handler grabs her by her hair and half leads, half drags her along, the knife never leaving her skin. It seems like forever, though she knows they cannot have travelled more than fifty yards away from the beach, before they step through a gap in the rocks and she sees the rest of the gang leering at her – and her blood freezes at the sight.

There are five or six of them, sitting and lying on a clear patch of sand about fifteen feet across, strewn with empty flasks, wine skins, and shards of bone, lit by a pair of flickering lanterns; she cannot be quite sure, between the surrounding darkness and the rocks hiding one or two of them from view. But the two she does recognise are the remnants of Low's crew, the wretched, unrepentant dregs who happened to be onshore when Vane and his men attacked the _Fancy_ and put everyone to the sword, and who have been spurned even by pirate crews since then, no one having the unscrupulous temerity to take them on. She never gave much thought, upon her return to Nassau, to the rumour of them living like rabid animals in the warrens of the Wrecks, never thinking she might ever have reason to come here, least of all at night and without a platoon of Redcoats; and her judgement was too clouded upon hearing Max's revelations to have reminded her of this particular lot.

Creatures who lost all trace of humanity, assuming they ever had any. Who can only survive by inflicting pain and violence.

Who hold her personally responsible for taking away their bloodthirsty livelihoods and putting them where they are. Who cannot be reasoned with, or bribed, or threatened, or beseeched.

Her handler directs a sharp kick at her ankle, and she stumbles and would fall were it not for his fist grabbing her hair; the others laugh as she cries out in pain, feeling as if her scalp were on fire. Another one of them walks up to her with a filthy rag and a thick rope, and forces her mouth open by tightening the rancid fabric into a knot at the back of her head; she is almost overcome by nausea as she tries to tell herself to breathe steadily. Between the two of them, the man and her attacker grab her wrists – there is no more need for the knife – and bind them together before pushing her off to the side of the clearing toward where a sort of wooden trestle has been set up – for roasting hogs, she thinks; the cross-pole is about five feet off the ground, and they tie her wrists to it, leaving her kneeling with her arms hoisted up before taking a step back to admire their despicable handiwork.

She knows that it is about to get worse, and soon; and is quickly proven right as the one who supplied the rope – their leader by the looks of it – picks up one of the lanterns, steps back to her and sets it nearby, regarding her as a butcher might look at a fresh, fat carcass, before grabbing the lace-edged bodice of her dress and giving it a tug; and she hears the delicate fabric ripping to expose her chest.

"Look at 'em tits!" one of the others yells. "White as milk, and pert like apples. Me cock's all leakin' already!"

"Shut the fuck up," the leader barks at him. "Ye ain't fuckin 'er ahead of yer turn."

But the challenger is not easily silenced. "And who says who gets to go first?" It is as if they were deciding the order of watches onboard.

"Brinkly found 'er, he must go first," another one speaks up.

"I say we decide it fair," the leader suggests, apparently magnanimous. "We flip a coin." He pulls a tarnished peso from his pocket.

"Naaah," her original attacker argues, "I know that fuckin' coin of yers, 'tis all crooked so ye know 'ow to flip it so it lands right."

"Fuck you, Brinkly. Well, if ye are such a fuckin' stickler fer them rules, we play for 'er fer real. Kneeves; go get them dice."

A couple of agonising minutes pass as the man scrambles to his feet and skulks away, further into the rocks to wherever their dwelling must be, as she waits for him to come back, forced to endure the repulsive commentary on her body and what each of them will be doing to it once they get their turn.

"And then we put 'er up on that beach fer her sweetheart the guv'ner to get an eyeful of her dead body when he an 'is boys in red do find 'er. Lessee what they make of it."

This is met by a bout of laughter, and she wishes they would kill her before any of their sickening fantasies can be visited upon her.

Kneeves returns with the dice and a piece of a wooden plank; and as the game progresses she keeps her eyes shut, trying to block out the sound of dice rolling and wondering if she can will herself to die. Maybe if she forces herself to stop breathing…

No such luck; the resolve is there but her body gives out and betrays her, and she heaves a painful gasp against the stinking rag, just as the revolting game draws to a close and with a raucous cheer mixed with profane congratulations, they salute one among their number. She does not care to see which of these creatures will be first to get to her, squeezing her eyes tighter. She hears footsteps, followed by the sound of knees settling onto sand; feels the night air against her legs as the skirts and petticoats of her dress are lifted up, and bites down on the gag as a sharp jerk rips apart her undergarments –

A quick step sounds from behind his back, and her assailant pauses, snorting in indignation. "Wait yer turn, ye fuck-"

The word is never finished; instead there is a guttural croak, her skirts fall back down, and her head jerks away reflexively as cloying warm liquid sprays onto her neck and chest, followed by the thud of a body hitting the sand.

Slowly, she opens her eyes for a squint –

And the next instant they fly wide open at the sight of a broad-shouldered black outline, instantly familiar, standing with his back to her as he stoops to wipe a long knife on the dead man's stained shirtsleeve.

"She's mine… to deal with." The voice, low at the best of times, now sounds like rocks grinding together; she wonders if it is a consequence of the failed hanging, seeing the purple welt on his neck where the light from the lantern hits it.

He takes a step toward the gang; they scramble away before he can reach them, clawing their way up the rocks like rats desperately fleeing the hold of a sinking ship.

Vane turns away from them and steps back toward her, knife in hand, bringing it up to her face.

At least he will kill her quickly.

But instead he slips the knifepoint between the gag and her cheek and cuts off the rag in a fluid motion, before slashing the rope that ties her wrists to the pole, sending her sinking to the ground.

Two men emerge from the shadows; she does not recognise their faces but seeing how they address Vane as _Captain_ , she knows, at least, that they are not from Low's crew.

"Can you walk?" It is so unexpected to have him speak to her that she flinches at first, and is instantly embarrassed.

"Yes," she exhales, scrambling to her feet.

Seeing her get up, he does not wait for her to stand fully upright, just turns and walks ahead, back toward the beach; she does her best to keep up, wary of losing her footing, her wrists still tied; the two crewmen follow behind her.

.

TBC

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As you may guess from my obsessive love of research, the names of Low's crewmen are real; unfortunately for humanity, Low himself, a despicable monster if one ever breathed, lived to see almost seven more years compared to the show, where Vane killed him presumably in August or September 1717.


	5. Adrift

Here is one more bit, seeing how I ended up tempted to type it.

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xxx

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There is an anchored rowboat waiting on the beach just east of where they re-emerge, bobbing serenely on the moonlit waves; nothing in this idyllic scene suggests the bloody drama that has just played itself out among the rocks less than a hundred yards away. One of the crewmen pulls it closer to shore; Vane hops into it and walks toward the stern; the crewman follows him in but stays at the bow and helps Eleanor climb aboard, seeing as her tied hands hinder her, motioning for her to sit down on a narrow bench two feet in. He then proceeds to pull up the anchor as the second man, still outside, pushes the boat away from the beach, levering himself inside when the water becomes too deep to wade in. All this is performed in total silence; most likely, Vane and the men had planned this beforehand, before Eleanor's misadventure brought her to this godforsaken corner of the island, and they know exactly where they are bound for, wherever that is.

She initially busies herself with putting her tattered dress in order; she is unable to reach down outside the boat far enough to get a handful of water to try and wash off the blood, but once she raises her tied wrists to the back of her head, her fingers are able to pull out the pair of hairpins still lodged there, and after a few minutes of awkward fumbling, she manages to fasten them to the front of her gown to keep the torn bodice in place as best she can. Now, seated alone at the bow as the men work the oars, she takes her bearings and attempts to compose herself, trying not to stare at Vane who sits at the other end of the boat, motionless except for his hand holding a cigar, his face glowing like a bronze mask when he inhales the smoke and the tobacco flares up.

It looks as if she has survived with her dignity mostly intact, which was a remote probability half an hour ago; although what the near future might hold for her, she cannot imagine. If Vane's motive for apprehending her had been revenge, it would have been more effectively served by having left her to the mercies of Low's outcasts, or else by cutting her throat on the beach and leaving her there as a warning for Rogers or the militia to discover. If he is taking her away instead, it is less likely that he has murder on his mind, albeit recent experience has reminded her that a quick death is not always the worst option.

They pass west of the long, low silhouette of Arawak Cay blocking their view of Nassau Harbour, black against the shimmering sea and midnight-blue sky; and now that they have rounded its northwest tip at the point where a mere hundred yards separate it from Silver Cay to the north, she sees it: the straight line of a tall mast flanked by the cobwebs of the rigging shrouds, glimmering faintly under the moon; a sloop, by the look of it, invisible from Nassau or from anywhere on New Providence, shielded by Arawak's mass. They are not hailed when they pull up to it, which means that they are expected – _he_ is, at any rate.

Sure enough, as soon as he has climbed aboard, he is greeted by an excited Jack Rackham and a less-than-usually sour-faced Anne; but after the initial embraces and pats on the back and blasphemous exclamations of contentment are over, and as soon as they see her follow Vane on board, the mood changes. Jack looks dismayed, though he diplomatically says nothing; Anne's scowl becomes more murderous than usual.

"What the fuck is this cunt doing here?"

She sees Vane's hand tighten its grip on the knife hilt for an instant before relaxing again.

"Darling, obviously Charles has brought her on board as a hostage..." Jack begins cautiously; his dark eyes dart between Vane and the two women on the moonlit deck, as if he fears one of them might argue against it.

Sure enough, Anne does. "What use is she to us? I say slit her throat and be done with her."

This time Vane's eyes flash at her so violently that Anne physically takes a step back, away from him.

"I decide what to do with her," he growls at Anne. "Not you. Not he," he nods at Jack. "And when I've made up my mind I tell you, and you do as I say," he finishes, his voice switching from smouldering fire to cold steel.

"Aye aye, Captain." Jack seemingly does not want this rift to spoil the reunion. Anne regales them all with a stormy glare as Jack goes on. "Instead of talking about Miss Guthrie's fate, can we all just go to your cabin, Charles, and celebrate your deliverance?"

The proposal seems to settle tempers somewhat; Anne shrugs and skulks away in the direction of the captain's cabin, Vane finally peels his eyes off Anne's retreating back, and Jack makes a fresh declaration of _how fucking wonderful it is to have him back among them_. "Come on, Charlie," he urges as grabs hold of Vane's arm, "the rum's waiting."

"Give me a minute, Jack. I need to make arrangements for Miss Guthrie's custody."

Jack does his best to suppress a sigh as Vane turns to look for her, standing a few steps away from them. He motions to her with his head; she obeys, for lack of alternatives if for no other reason. "You too, Tanner," he turns to one of the men who rowed them from shore. "And fetch a lantern."

They descend through a hatch below deck, the swaying lantern turning the cramped space into a gloomy maze. Vane stops at a door at the foot of the ladder, with a key sticking outside the lock, opens it, shines the lantern inside and, apparently satisfied, motions for Eleanor to go in. Just as she has passed the doorway, he calls after her.

"Your wrists."

She is baffled for an instant before catching his intent and extending her hands to him. He pulls out the knife again, still streaked with dried blood –she fights back the nausea – and with a swift, practiced motion cuts her loose; but then, before she can say a word, he shuts the door in front of her, and she can hear the key turning in the lock.

"Bring Miss Guthrie some water and something to eat," he instructs Tanner. "And stay outside until I relieve you." And with that, by the sound of it, he is climbing the ladder back to the deck.

Squinting in the dark, her only source of illumination provided by the reflected moonlight shining through a narrow porthole, Eleanor takes stock of her surroundings.

There is a reason why Vane has put her here, if he has any motive to suspect her of wanting to make mischief. The room is virtually empty; whatever supplies it may have housed have been cleared out, and the only item of furniture, if it be termed that, is a long, low padlocked chest set flush against one of the bulkheads. At five feet long and about two feet wide, it is not quite big enough to make for a comfortable bed, but its flat top might make for an acceptable one. Living quarters would have hammocks for sleeping in, and the more luxurious cabins might even boast a bunk; but in her present position, she might have to be content with this. If, that is, she ever feels sleepy, which at the moment seems a remote prospect.

About a quarter of an hour later Tanner knocks on her door, unnecessarily, before unlocking it and carrying in a small bundle wrapped in linen, a full pitcher, and a slop bucket, guided by the lantern he left at the doorway. Having seen her at the Wrecks, he looks to be torn between a guard's need to be intimidating and human sympathy; in the end sympathy prevails, and as he steps back outside he holds the lantern out for her, with a crooked not-quite-but-almost smile.

"Captain didn't say anything about lights, Miss, but I reckon if you're to have dinner you might as well see the food. But you need to give it back to me as soon as you're done, seeing how we're an hour past lights-out already. Captain's orders for everyone, Miss. I only have it 'cause I'm on guard here."

She wonders if Vane and his associates drinking in the cabin upstairs are meant to obey the same rule.

"Thank you, Tanner. I'll give it back as you say."

"And try to be careful with it, not to start a fire... or something."

She nods, unexpectedly amused. Even if she were a vindictive saboteur hell-bent on killing Vane, setting the ship on fire would be an extremely stupid thing to do, seeing how she is stuck below deck under lock and key.

"Very well, Miss. Just, you know, holler if you need anything."

Sure enough, being a prisoner aboard a pirate vessel is supposed to be much worse than this.

xxx

Her first order of the day – or rather, of the night – is to try and wash off the blood. It is easy to get it off her skin, but the stains on her gown refuse to budge, instead blossoming into bigger and brighter shapes in a grisly reminder. Defeated, she turns her attention to dinner, consisting of a couple of slices of salt pork and half a loaf of bread, washed down by water from the pitcher. That finished, she sets aside the half-empty pitcher and the bucket, and summons Tanner to hand back the empty sack and the forbidden lantern.

And then she is left alone in the dark, sitting on the floor with her back propped against the chest, her head spinning from the combined effects of the night's ordeal, a nagging hangover, and the things she heard from Max. The hangover can be countered, to an extent, by sipping water with her eyes closed; but the magnitude of Max's soul-shattering revelations seems even greater now than it did earlier, in her shocked, frantic, rum-addled state; and while she tells herself that relatively speaking, she is much safer than she was a couple of hours ago, she is also aware that, with the possible exception of Tanner and his crewmate, the only other person on board who does not – _apparently_ – want her dead, or in harm's way, is the man she has tried to hang. And she has just seen how little her much-vaunted authority amounts to in the face of real danger.

Perhaps it never amounted to much.

She has prided herself on the power she wielded in Nassau; lately she was also proud of how she was able to regain it even after her sojourn in a London prison, convinced that she had her way thanks to her wits and strength of character. But if she is completely honest with herself, she cannot escape the knowledge that a good deal of her authority was predicated on the recognised fact that other people had high esteem for her – other people who wielded power perhaps greater than hers, as was the case with both Rogers and Vane.

It is no coincidence that her troubles came about whenever she and Vane had a major falling out; no accident that Low barged into Nassau to bully her when Vane's survival was in doubt; no great surprise that Hornigold was able to capture and sell her out to Hume as soon as Vane was known to have broken with her. She was respected as a shrewd trader, a tough negotiator; but the deeper reason no one had dared cross her or threaten her was the knowledge that they would face retaliation by Vane's hand, as Ned Low did. Rogers cared for her too, and upheld her status as well as his duties allowed; but it pales in comparison with Vane who never thought twice about risking all he had and all he valued on her whims. The bitter irony is not lost on her now: Vane the monster, standing by her after she had cost him not just money but his mentor, his ship, his crew and reputation, and finally calmly going to his death because of her; and Rogers the gentleman, ready to abandon her as soon as she became an inconvenience. But she and Vane had become too engrossed in their warfare to see things for what they were.

No, not _she and Vane_ ; the bulk of the blame lies with her alone.

Ever since he fell for her as an adolescent girl, and after she submitted to his advances a couple of years later, she had been so exasperated by the mix of indulgence and insouciance he treated her with, desperate to be taken seriously, to be recognised as a force to be reckoned with, a fighter on par with him, that she resented what she saw as a challenge to her status where in reality it probably had been little more than an attempt, no matter how misguided, to gain favour with her. And so their relationship took the twisted shape of power play, of a contest where neither party was accustomed to losing; and finally turned into an extended duel, so much so that it came to real blows between them when she decided to wage war against him in defence of Flint. And yet through it all, while she pulled no punches in seeking to humiliate and destroy him, he was always the first one to back down; he even tried to stay calm and play fair when she changed and twisted all the rules. Even after she had taken his ship, lured his crew away from him, and conspired to have the remainder killed – for a crime she now knows him to be only marginally guilty of – even then the first thing he did when he came back, stronger than ever, after going through who knows what manner of hell, and regaining a position of power, was to come to her and offer her partnership instead of trying to destroy her in return, or at least instead of dictating terms to her when he stood to gain much more from a harsher stance. Not to mention that he faced off with Low for her; regardless of the nebulous bait she had offered, it was seeing her desperate and in danger that made him do it. He had always stood by her, tried to protect her, and like it or not, he had never lied to her. Concealed things, yes; and even then, his crimes in that department have now been revealed to be have been far less grave than she thought with regards to Max, and have been non-existent in the case of Abigail Ashe, when he himself had led her to see the young prisoner.

 _He was always loyal to her_.

Unlike Eleanor herself, busy piling one betrayal on top of another.

She had her reasons for her final betrayal of him over the Ashe girl, but doing it after he had confided in her and she had apparently, finally, accepted his offer of partnership; doing so when he was at grave risk from it, was every bit as despicable, in the final tally, as any of his alleged atrocities. Still, she had tried to reason with him, only to be faced with his typical stubborn idiocy, Vane unable to fathom, or acquiesce to, the idea that she might have been acting in the interests of nobler motives and a grander vision. And then he destroyed everything when he murdered Richard Guthrie... then again, she now knows that even his ruthless retaliation was not as cold-blooded or unprovoked as it seemed.

She now knows a lot of things, and yet has no fucking idea in hell as to where all this has left her at, or what it might lead to.

xxx

She finally curls up on top of the chest and dozes off just as the first hint of pre-dawn light has turned her surroundings from the post-moonset pitch black to murky grey; she cannot quite tell if the sloop is still anchored or on the move, lacking a mariner's experience to tell from the roll of its hull and the subtle creak of its timbers. At any rate, whatever is happening, she is unlikely to have much say in it; oddly, the resignation sets her mind at ease long enough to help her sleep.

She wakes up in the late morning, or so it seems; the ship is once again at anchor – this time she can be certain of it, seeing how a tiny islet visible from the porthole stays in exactly the same position – but apart from the knowledge that they are no longer at Arawak Cay she has no idea where they are.

Hours pass when her mind alternates between listless resignation and intense, uncontrollable anxiety bordering on dread as she paces the cabin; finally, in the afternoon, when Tanner brings her dinner, she asks him if she can see the captain.

xxx

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TBC

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The sloop I put Eleanor on is a reference to the _William_ , a particularly fast sloop that Jack Rackham and Anne Bonny captured by secretly boarding it in Nassau harbour on August 22, 1720, to mark their renunciation of Roger's pardon and return to piracy for their final short-lived spell; by then the real Vane was imprisoned on Jamaica.

Unlike Low's bandits, Tanner is both an invented name as far as pirate crews go and an invented character, seeing how one of Vane's better-known real associates gave him the slip on the Carolina coast earlier that autumn and the other one I have bigger use for in later chapters.

Lights-out at night was a common practice on wooden ships to cut the risk of fires, and violations were harshly punished, but while I am not 100% sure I do doubt that captains were beholden to the rule.

Now that I have hopefully re-established my credentials re reliable posting, I will take a couple of days before putting up the next bit. I am somewhat sentimentally attached to it, and want to give it due credit by writing it up in a less-sleepy, more-creative state.


	6. Rendezvous

Thank you, dear readers, for any and all expressions of interest re this story! I could have played and tinkered with this chapter forever, but had to post it sooner or later :)

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xxx

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"You're dismissed."

That husky voice behind the door catches her unawares; for a confused, panicky moment she imagines the words are addressed to her, and by the time she has realised that he has thus sent away the guard, the key is already turning in the lock; so when he enters she still has an anxious, wide-eyed look as she is getting up from the chest, and he answers it with one of vague contempt.

She watches him as he stalks in, unarmed, in a perfect reversal of their roles from four days ago; she can only pray to receive better treatment at his hands than he did at hers. He is carrying a grey bundle; before she has time to wonder what it is, he tosses it at her from a distance of about five feet that he could have closed in two easy strides. She unrolls it; it is a shirt she has seen him wearing, muddy grey in colour but freshly laundered. She pulls it on, glad of a few moments' opportunity to hide her blushes as she slips her head through the collar. The temporary fix she did on her dress with two hairpins is far from adequate in the light of day, seeing how it gapes at the sides, and the smeared bloodstains against the bright blue silk are not helping, but the worst of it is, deep down she knows that the colour in her cheeks comes from the odd thrill of wearing something that belongs to him. She can only hope that between the dim light inside the storeroom, and her facing him with her back to the porthole, he will not notice.

"Thank you, Charles."

He does not answer; and she realises that with the better part of a day at her disposal, she has not had the foresight to have devised a good opening statement. All she can do is say the obvious.

"I-" The voice catching in her throat is really unnecessary. "I wanted to thank you…"

"Spare me your gratitude," he cuts in. Softer than yesterday, his gravelly voice has lost some if its scary rasp, but is even more unnerving in its flat, chilly tone, cold steel wrapped in velvet.

"You didn't shackle my hands," she stumbles on, trying at the last moment to substitute her thanks for her survival with appreciation for leaving her a degree of freedom in her present imprisonment; as if it can make the exchange less awkward.

He shrugs. "You have nowhere to go."

How the hell can he be so sure? Has he had a way of knowing what happened between her and Rogers, or about the likely end to her council tenure? It does not even matter because an objection would make her look remarkably stupid, and she admits it by silent acquiescence.

He sets his right shoulder against the bulkhead and stays there watching her, with that infuriating, inscrutable sideways gaze of his, as she struggles to meet his eyes and tries her best not to stare at the purple stripe on his neck, above the spiked collar. Then, to make the point that he has nothing to say to her even more painfully clear, he pulls a silver _peso_ _de ocho_ out of a compartment in his wide belt and starts playing with it, flipping it between his fingers, apparently engrossed in the exercise as she stands there fidgeting five feet away.

"You asked to see me." His eyes flash in her direction once more.

At least this time she has managed not to jump at hearing his voice.

"I wanted to ask you what you are going to do with me."

He shrugs again, but before she can despair of an answer, he goes on. "We're anchored at Morgan's Bluff." She has heard of the spot, a rocky headland at the northernmost tip of Andros island, 30 miles east of Nassau. "We stay here until tomorrow's ebb tide. I can let you get onshore when you like, you can walk to Nicholls Town two miles south across the bluff and get passage from there to Nassau or wherever you please."

So in case she needed any more proof that the guard was only stationed outside the door for her protection, she has it now. He has no interest in keeping her prisoner, hostage, or whatever.

He raises his eyebrows at her. "If your real question is whether I am going to kill you, or fuck you, or let anyone else fuck you in retaliation for what you wanted to do to me, the answer is _no_."

She knew it already; but while it is understandable that her relief is consequently contained, the stab of pain at hearing conclusive proof that he simply wants to be rid of her is still unexpected; and she finds herself scrambling for purchase, her mind racing trying to find a way of stalling.

Well, he did say _or wherever you please_ ; he meant her destination to be her concern, but perhaps she can use it as a pretext.

"What about you? Where are you- where is your sloop bound next?"

He stays at the same spot but visibly puts in greater distance from her, his shoulders straightening and his chin lifting so now, instead of squinting up with his head bent, he is regarding her with icy disdain through half-closed eyelids.

"Miss Guthrie," he begins, and while his voice is softer still, it cuts even deeper. "You have spent too long among the dim-witted pricks in the Navy and in the new colonial government…" He positively spits out that latter part. "…To forget that some of your adversaries have a functioning brain…" Why the fuck is she now pissed off at the _adversary_ thing when five days ago she was convinced that Charles Vane was her mortal enemy? "…if you think that I am idiot enough to take that innocent question of yours at face value and answer it for what you make it out to be, instead of what it really is."

She could kick herself.

For fuck's sake, she was too distracted to have meant the stupid question as _anything but_ an innocent inquiry, or rather as an even more embarrassing attempt to prolong her stay on board, to realise what it would sound like. She winces in belated frustration; and at seeing that, and surely misreading it for her annoyance at being discovered, the disdain in his eyes turns to cruel mockery.

"I am willing to let you go, seeing how I have no use for you, but if you think I will happily march back into the noose by relaying my next moves to His Excellency Governor Rogers through you, you need to adjust your view of the world." She struggles to hear the rest of what he is saying, too busy hiding unbidden distress at the _I have no use for you_ ; but Charles Vane is far from finished kicking her teeth in, as it were. "I sympathise with your predicament and your desperate need to garner favour with the governor again, but I have better use for my time than to turn myself into an instrument of my own destruction with a traitor's help. You will have to console yourself with the hope that His Excellency might condescend to take you back if you suck his noble cock hard enough-"

He never has a chance to finish.

For the past few minutes she has been slowly going insane with dejection; first seeing his icy indifference, then faced with the immediate prospect of leaving; now, finally, finding herself on the receiving end of contemptuous derision; but this last bit, coupled with the shameful knowledge that Rogers did indeed end their liaison and made worse by the fact that Vane's implication of a treacherous motive, while untrue in this case, is based on a long history, drives her over the edge.

She instantly crosses the short distance between them and slaps him with all her strength; and finding no solace to her fury she does it again, and once more, before the memory of their encounter in the fort's prison cell makes her freeze.

He just stands there, eyes closed; he will stand there until the end of time.

"Go on."

He is so fucking calm that she is instantly rattled. Then again, he has survived much worse than being slapped by a girl, so if she is to have any hope of unsettling him in return she urgently needs another tactic. Such, at least, is the flash of rational thought in her mind, seeming dangerously like justifying a _fait accompli_ , as she puts her hands on his shoulders and kisses him, forcefully, hungrily, urgently.

His shock is augmented by the fact that he did not see what she was about to do, so much so that he freezes. Distantly, she hears the coin clink on the floorboards and roll away.

For an instant he responds to her; and it is enough to make her stomach tighten and set her blood on fire; until, realising what he is doing, he sets his hands on her arms and draws her away, so far that she has to take a step back to keep her balance. He lets go of her and crosses his arms.

"Go back to your lover, Eleanor, and do what you please with him."

"No."

Even she is surprised at how loudly, and how assuredly, she said it.

She backs away to the chest, two or three feet behind her, and sinks down onto it.

"I was in love with him for a while," she says much more quietly, looking down, before raising her eyes to Vane. "But not anymore."

He seems to notice, at this moment, where his coin has ended up, and takes his time walking over to pick it up. But instead of continuing the fiddling, he slips it back into his belt.

The silence descends again.

They stay like that, Eleanor seated on the chest facing the door, Vane leaning next to it; she desperately hopes that he will stay there long enough for her to find the words to say what she wants, but for the moment she is tongue-tied. She looks up at him, standing still and completely unreadable. She was right when she called him an animal, after all; he reminds her of one now, not in character but in appearance, lean, muscular, graceful and dangerous as a wolf, with a predator's sharp eyes glowing at her in the dim cabin.

Before she can say anything, he pushes away from the bulkhead.

"Tell the guard if you need more water. I'll make arrangements for you to go onshore in the morning."

He already has his back to her, with his hand on the brass doorknob, when abruptly she stands up.

"Wait!.."

It is now or never, indeed.

"I… wronged you."

Time stands still, it seems; he remains completely motionless.

Then, at last, without turning to her, he answers her, his voice quiet and husky.

"When?"

Now is her chance, and she'd better not fuck it up. The trouble is, there really are too many times when she wronged him; how does she pick the worst, the most important, the one _he_ would consider most important? Would it be the first time she betrayed him? The last time? The last time she saw him before the hanging? The hanging itself?

She knows the real point of no return only too well.

"When I betrayed you over Abigail Ashe."

Slowly, he takes his hand off the doorknob.

And then she is tongue-tied no longer; if anything, the danger she is in now is that of incoherent babbling as her words try to catch up with her mind.

"I know you think I did it to hurt you, or to bring Nassau back under control, and that I had planned it all as part of a plot with Flint against you, but it was just me, on my own. Well, I did think, I think I still do, that Nassau is better off with the order restored and the commerce following legal rules, if we were honest with ourselves, Charles, we knew, I surely knew and you had to know, that it could not stay independent like that forever, that sooner or later someone, England or Spain or an entire fucking alliance would raise arms against it… but the reason I took the girl away, the reason I had to do it, was because I could not leave her there at the mercy of a pirate gang, not after what happened to Max…"

He does not let her finish, turning towards her and taking a step back in her direction, forcing her to sit down again.

"Eleanor… think what you may about Nassau's future and how it may be best served; you may be the better judge of that for all I know, though I'll never agree with you, but if you thought I was going to throw Miss Ashe to the crew's mercy, after all the trouble my men and I took to bring her safely and secretly off the _Fancy_ , after I told her to write to her father for a huge ransom, _after I had personally guaranteed her safety_ … Then again, it should not surprise me knowing what you think of me. But if you think it was ever my intention to have Max dealt with the way – it happened, for whatever reason, then let me tell you…"

"I know," she interrupts him with vehement passion, before continuing in a calmer tone. "She has told me now. I didn't know it back then… why didn't you tell me, Charles?"

"Because," he snaps, leaning in her direction, "it wouldn't have mattered fuck. Because…" seeing her about to protest, he continues, his rising voice betraying his anger, "you were determined to hate me and destroy me no matter what, and I wasn't going to explain myself in front of my crew, not after you had tried to publicly humiliate me by throwing punches two days before then. Because… what the fuck does it matter _now_ , Eleanor?"

She gets up from the chest and takes half a step toward him, hoping that he will not back away.

"It does." Her voice is very quiet, but it seems to instantly dissipate the rage that was building within him. "It does."

His shoulders relax, and if she is not imagining things, the next breath he exhales is akin to a sigh.

"And the other thing with Miss Ashe," she mutters; she might as well get it all off her chest, seeing how he is listening at last, "is that I knew she would continue to stand as a bone of contention between you and Flint, and so long as I had you two at each other's throats I was facing a civil war in Nassau, and _that_ was definitely the last thing I wanted, with or without English rule."

He looks vaguely entertained by the admission, but more immediately angered by it.

"You should have just let the two of us sort it out," he shoots back at her, "instead of meddling."

"What, and let you kill each other?" She remembers perfectly how she found the two of them _literally_ at each other's throats and it took a pistol shot to get them to pause long enough to reconsider.

"So you were so worried about your darling Flint that you thought he needed protecting?"

"Seeing how he was the one best able to think clearly, _yes_."

He answers with a bitter chuckle. "I can think clearly too, when others don't try to meddle with my affairs." He steps sideways back toward the bulkhead, which happens to bring him slightly closer in her general direction. "And thinking clearly, and knowing England for the greedy bastards they are, I laugh at your idealism, Eleanor, believing that Nassau will now be governed by the rule of law. It will still be governed by the rule of money, but instead of it being done openly, instead of it remaining a free island, there will now be a greedy government milking people for taxes and growing fat as they wait to collect their pensions at the citizens' expense. If you could see reason, you'd agree that even if resistance proved too costly or too much of challenge to mount, we could do what your- what was always done before and bribe off the Lords Proprietor, or blackmail them if I had my say, instead of doing the idiotic thing Flint did, trying to kiss old Ashe's arse. A fat lot of fucking good it did him, too, he'd be fucking hanged if I hadn't decided to go to Charlestown and get him out." Seeing her eyes widen in shock at the revelation, he smirks and continues, "but until you fell in love with the government, you could never find fault with Flint. He played you as he played us all, and you could never hate him the way you hated me."

" _Because I never loved Flint!_ "

It comes out as a shrill cry; she is wondering vaguely why the fuck she blurted it out and even Vane is taken aback, or at least sufficiently surprised as to pause in his invective.

"Well, you can hate me all you want for whatever reason," he says finally with a shrug. "Except one." He fixes her with a steely stare. "What I told you about old Guthrie and the way he died – "

"Is true," she finishes for him.

In a moment of dark satisfaction, she sees those narrow eyes flash wide in shock.

"Max told me that, too," she continues. "That's why I went to The Wrecks. To look for your former quartermaster who she says was there and saw it…"

"Yes, she told _me_ that, too," he says grimly, and Eleanor finally has her suspicions confirmed as to how he was able to find her after Low's gang caught her. "It was a fool's errand, Eleanor," he continues after a while, "Ned England slipped away and sailed off to the East Indies a good month ago. But I suppose you thought Max was lying to you too."

She shakes her head.

"I just - I _did not want_ it to be true." She shudders as the horrific events of last night reappear before her mind's eye, all the way to when he showed up to rescue her. "Listen, I know you'll think I'm only saying this because I am on board your sloop, but I really wish I'd known these things before…"

He gives her a long stare.

"What are you saying?"

"You know what I am saying. Do you want me to beg for your forgiveness for what I said… for what I did to you?"

"No."

He turns halfway away from her, so that instead of one shoulder, he is leaning with his back fully against the bulkhead boards. Then he turns his head to glance at her, and apparently amused at her crushed look, adds, mock-pensively, "But if you feel like it…" as he crosses his arms on his chest, eyes half closed, a bored spectator awaiting a mediocre performance.

 _You expect a performance, Charles, I'll give you a fucking performance you won't be forgetting anytime soon._

She steps right up to him and sinks to her knees as she undoes the buttons on his leather breeches.

She is too busy with this to see his reaction, though she can feel him start as she pulls the flies open, and can hear him sucking in air through his teeth as she takes his cock, pretty much hard already, into her mouth; and she thinks she hears him suppress a groan as her tongue flicks over it. But before she can do anything else he grabs her shoulders and pulls her up again, and while she is reeling with frustration, she at least has the satisfaction of feeling how his grasp on her arms is quite shaky, even though when he addresses her next his voice is admirably under control – but his wild eyes aren't.

"Eleanor, if you want to be taken somewhere instead of going onshore here, you need not fuck me to pay for passage… or to ensure your safety, or whatever."

"I know," she answers; it is a rare occasion that evening that she is the more-unruffled one. "I know I don't have to. I _want_ to."

Bloody fucking hell, does she _ever_.

He stares at her.

Then his hands slip down to her waist and trail up under the shirt, hot thumbs brushing over her nipples inside the torn bodice; and he watches greedily as her eyes close and she gasps and her chin jerks up; and seeing all that, he picks her up, puts her up on the chest, pushes up her skirt, sets her legs apart while trailing kisses, soft and scorching hot, up her inner thighs, then spreads her open with his fingers and fucks her with his tongue until her body has turned to boneless jelly and her voice is hoarse from moaning.

.

TBC

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Surprised? Angry Vane could not resist her? Happy they finally faced each other off? Feel free to let me know either way; now that I have these two living in my head full time for the past two weeks, I am definitely happy to discuss different takes on their characters, motivations, and the likelihood or unlikelihood of various actions on their part.

This brings the story to its halfway point; as I could not possibly fill the next six chapters with nonstop smut (the next one will suffice :) ), rest assured that the rollercoaster for the rest of their voyage is just getting started ;)


	7. Truce

Thank you as always for letting me know that you enjoy this tale! Last chapter was quite special for me as the emotional fulcrum of the plot, the turning point in a relationship that had been going down the wrong track forever, and I am glad that it reads well.

I apologise for not answering PMs at once – with the screwed-up Internet connection I have, I had to choose between answering now, as opposed to later tonight, and posting an extra chapter; and the chapter won; besides, I want to answer them well. Last chapter's emotional pitch may not be a sustainable proposition, but these next two parts move the plot further forward from the good start our guys have made.

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xxx

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"Why are you ogling me like this?"

There is, strictly speaking, no reason why he should not, considering that she is lying stark naked in his bunk; then again, it was he who got her here – she vaguely remembers him carrying her up into his cabin from the storeroom earlier that night – and put her in this state.

His raised eyebrows are eloquent enough. _Why not?_

Well, maybe she should not begrudge him a bit of enjoyment of his latest prize, especially since he was even so considerate as to find a set of clean bed sheets; it is just that she finds the close inspection both exciting, considering that he is not merely looking at her but also stroking her skin, and embarrassing, considering that he is sitting on the edge of the bunk still wearing his leather breeches and the leather cuffs on his forearms, and thus, relatively speaking, is at an advantage coverage-wise. She could really use one of those cuffs in particular, seeing how he has been studying the bite mark on her forearm where she sank her teeth into it to stop herself from crying out too loud an hour or so ago. Or else she might remind him that strictly speaking it is past lights-out by now and he should do something about that lit lantern by the bunk.

Belatedly, he decides to give her a proper answer.

"It's been a while since I had a naked woman in my bed." She raises incredulous eyes to him, but there is not even the slightest hint of a joke in his gaze. "And I might as well have a good look now, to remember you like this for when you have betrayed me again."

Now this verbal punch to the gut was really unnecessary… though not undeserved.

"I'm done with betrayals," she argues glumly.

He is not inclined to be particularly trusting, but is not particularly concerned, either. "Maybe. I'll take what I can, while I can." At least it is accompanied by an insolent grin. Maybe she can just take it easy for now.

The next moment, it is obvious that _taking it easy_ is about the last thing she can expect as he slips a finger between her legs – she is still dripping wet from earlier – and makes an utterly salacious show of slowly licking it, watching as her hips buck up at seeing him do it.

At this rate she will have no vestige of control left by dawn. But she can still get back some of it… _while she can_.

She props herself up on one elbow, just enough for her hand to reach to his crotch. She does not even bother undoing the buttons – it would take two hands to do that – just rubs him through the leather and is at least pleased to see that she is not the only one prone to involuntary reactions.

By the time he is fucking her, slowly and thoroughly, his body flush against her back, his muscular arms like bronze against her pale skin, his broad hand stroking her lower abdomen before slipping between her legs again, his other hand playing with her breasts and his mouth sucking on the crook of her neck as she whimpers in helpless abandon, she no longer gives a flying fuck as to which of them is more in control.

xxx

What amazes her in retrospect, as she lies half-awake in the predawn light with his arms still wrapped around her, is how downright gentle he was… though what should _really_ amaze her, if she is to be honest with herself, is how she permitted him to be so.

In what is by now a tumultuous and tragic nearly 12-year history of their on-and-off relationship – not counting that chance meeting on the waterfront with her 13-year-old self that Eleanor cannot clearly recall – they have hardly ever been like this with each other, not even early on. He did try to be nice to her, at first; but she simply would not go for it. In truth she resented him for having been her first lover; embarrassingly aware of having been at her most sexually awkward and exposed with him, in contrast with the equal-standing contest they had going on out of bed as she was already getting the reins of her father's shady business with Scott's help and he was gradually making his way up the ranks, from regular crewman to officer to quartermaster and, eventually, to captain. She had been careful to make no missteps to uphold the balance of power between them as best a young girl could; but as soon as they had shared a bed she felt her position slipping and weakening. And so she started playing hard-to-get with him; and in return, when she chose to condescend to his attentions, he would often be forceful, almost feral in their encounters, as if asserting his power over her. In turn it made her extremely wary of showing any sign of vulnerability; to the point when she stopped viewing theirs as a loving relationship, the way he had initially wanted to, and started using sex as a bargaining tool, meting it out as occasional rewards, which he nonetheless eagerly lapped up, feeding her vanity, even though she enjoyed it more than she let on; and this tense on-and-off romance seemed to drag on forever… until his patience finally snapped.

Now, with both of them having narrowly survived a brush with death, and with her having, for once, experienced a liaison that allowed her to see that being exposed and trusting did not necessarily equal being weak, she can only wonder at what a fool she has been all these years to overly complicate and contaminate what should be a simple, and unconditionally enjoyable, matter.

xxx

"So now that I hopefully left you no reason to suspect an ulterior motive in my question…" If he still has any doubts, her fingertips stroking his lower abdomen should go some way to assuaging them. "…where _are_ you bound next?"

He chuckles; in a mirror image of last night, she is now seated on one side of the bunk, caressing him as he lies naked before her.

"I don't know if I can ever put ulterior motives past you, Eleanor…" he begins and bites his lip, his breath hitching as her fingers step up the relentless teasing; but she can see that it is said largely in jest. "but we haven't really decided yet. Jack and Anne only stole this sloop yesterday evening; we shall have a crew assembly later today to discuss our destination. Seeing how we are still in the hurricane season with a good month of it still to come, I would favour going north toward the Carolina coast where the likelihood of being hit by a storm is somewhat lower. But the final decision will depend on how the crew votes."

Knowing Vane, she knew to expect an honest answer if any at all; but she did not expect such a detailed one, and is encouraged by it to proceed with satisfying her curiosity.

"I didn't know the sloop was such a recent acquisition."

"Seeing how our other ships are all tied up facing off with the Navy under Flint's command to defend the treasure, and seeing how I was not inclined to infringe on Governor Rogers' hospitality too long after my escape, it was something of an emergency solution," he explains with a half-smirk, "but I am pleased with it. It belonged to John Ham," he goes on; she recognises the name of a local merchant based on one of the nearby islands. "…and is known for its speed. Ham has been out of town on business, and knowing this, Anne went aboard pretending to have business of her own with him, knowing he would not be there, and in the meantime did all the reconnaissance she could. So yesterday evening she and Jack and half a dozen others went aboard and overpowered what little crew there was, knowing where to find them, while I was waiting on Arawak Cay with the rest of the crew to join them… which was when Max showed up with a lantern on the other side a hundred yards across the strait. At first I thought she carried a message from Jack and Anne, but when she got across the strait she told me what happened."

All things considered, Eleanor thinks, Max was telling the truth in calling herself Eleanor's friend; she may have been merciless in delivering her verdict on Eleanor's treatment of Vane, but ended up literally saving her skin. But given her and Vane's fucked-up history when it comes to Max, she does not feel like staying on the subject now.

"If Jack and Anne stole the sloop, how come you got to command it?" Seeing how Anne greeted her, and knowing how much Jack looks up to Anne, Eleanor is not complaining, merely curious.

"He owes me." When no further explanation follows, she makes a wide-eyed face at him. "I teamed up with Anne and Flint to get him out when your lover…" Seeing her scowl he thinks better of it. "…your _former_ lover decided to ship him off to a Spanish prison. When we apprehended the carriage they were in, it overturned, and we lost time getting Jack out from under it and getting the shackles off him, by which time the militia arrived. Rogers fired a pistol shot at me," he points to the bandage on his thigh, "so I could not outrun him, and I told Jack and Anne to get out with the treasure chest, and stayed behind to stave off pursuit, whereupon His Excellency went at me with a wooden stake. Hence, I was not the best help for them in stealing the sloop, but seeing how Jack owes me he gave me the command."

So that explains the lurid bruises on his chest and back, a veritable map of pain… she saw how fucked up Rogers was upon his return to Nassau from capturing Vane, but having now seen the damage on Vane's side, she begins to think that Rogers got off lightly.

"I no longer represent Woodes Rogers' interests," she remarks, looking sideways at him, pleased to see that he is not inclined to argue, or to scowl in disbelief, "but given our past association, I do apologise on his behalf." With that, she goes on to press her lips gently to the nasty-looking blotches, wondering distantly if both Rogers' fury in attacking Vane and his break-up with her had as their underlying motive his realisation that no matter what she said, no matter how much she might have wanted it, even believed it, to be true, Eleanor could never have got over the other man.

"You put me in a difficult position, Eleanor," he mutters in the meantime; and seeing her understandable confusion, he explains, "seeing how I do not hold you personally accountable for these. But were I to say now that your apology is not needed, I'd be in danger of seeing you stop."

She laughs softly against his skin. "But I am," she says, pulling herself up, "personally responsible for _this_ ," she finishes before trailing her tongue over the fading bruise on his neck, and is pleased to hear him gasp with pleasure.

"I shouldn't complain about being hanged," he says when she lets off for a moment, "if it makes you so hungry for me. Maybe I should do it more often."

She sits up and turns away in an unexpected tumult of conflicting emotions; somehow she is amused and afraid and guilty and angry all at once.

"Maybe," she says pointedly, not looking at him," you should just fuck around less."

Caught unawares by her train of thought, he argues, not unreasonably, that _this_ , coming from a woman who was in another's bed until a week ago, is rather rich; but while she remembers her part in poisoning their relationship of old, she also remembers his part in ending it.

"You started it," she insists quietly, still not looking at him.

It takes a moment, but he does catch on.

"Was that it?" he asks, propping himself up on one elbow to catch a sideways look at her face. "When I walked out on you for rejecting my cargo and went and fucked half the girls in the brothel for a week straight, was _that_ why you told me we were through and went to Max?"

She sighs and nods, trying not to look at him, holding on to the vestiges of her anger. Like it or not, but her primary motive in starting the affair with Max was to retaliate at Vane for daring to turn his back on her… regardless of the fact that she had provoked it in the first place.

He drops back down on the mattress. "I was tired of waiting for favours," he says quietly after a while. "I'd just won the _Ranger_ and I hoped you'd see me more approvingly after that, and instead you were all cold and disdainful and doing your best to be mean to me. I am not necessarily saying I was right, but I was tired."

And she, to quote His Excellency the governor, was _so damn stupid_. "I'm not necessarily saying I was right, either," she counters, finally looking back at him, hoping she will not blush.

He shakes his head on the pillow. "And to think of what extremes of mutual hatred it led us into."

"We were always playing for power," she says with a shrug, knowing it to be an inadequate explanation; what's worse, an untruthful one.

Sure enough, he calls her out on it.

" _You_ were always playing for power. I was willing to give up a lot of things if only you'd be with me."

That, coming from a man who would never concede to anyone. Except her.

"And now?" she asks in a small, dejected voice, almost expecting him to say that by now she has blown what chances she once had of having his real affections.

But rather than delivering the sentence, he regards her with what borders on open amusement.

"I don't know," he says eventually.

Well, if he thinks he can fuck around with her, she is entitled to a bit of retaliation.

"Maybe this will help you decide… Captain."

She slides down the bunk, her face level with his crotch, looking up at him as she licks her lips.-

And whatever he may have said about _not knowing_ , minutes later, when she hears him moaning under her ministrations, she knows that she can still win this battle… even though, strictly speaking, they are no longer fighting.

xxx

The crew assembly is held at noon, and the vote is overwhelmingly in favour of Vane's suggestion of a voyage up the Carolina coast, given also what is known of navigation routes in the area and the recent increase in merchant ship traffic to the colonies. The meeting is about to be adjourned when Vane looks up to where Eleanor has been watching the proceedings from the quarterdeck rail and asks her to join him on the main deck.

"There is one more announcement I must make before we're finished," he tells the crew. "Miss Guthrie, who some of you may know, is sailing with us on this voyage, and I would have you know that her safety and well-being are matters for which I consider myself responsible for so long as she stays aboard." Seeing quite a few sour faces is no surprise to Eleanor; at least no one so far has openly objected. But Vane, apparently not content with the statement alone, proceeds to mention two or three choice alternatives in terms of the horrible punishment that would befall anyone who would dare treat her improperly. Out of a corner of her eye, she sees Anne Bonny fixing her with her usual murderous stare, her jaw set and her stance defiant; hopefully Rackham can keep her in check, for where Anne is concerned, Vane's threats of ripping any potential offender's balls off are falling on deaf ears. Eleanor is glad of the opportunity to escape to the captain's cabin when the meeting is over, not so much for fear of arousing passions within the men as for fear of provoking Anne into some rash act of aggression.

Apparently at least one of the officers believes her to be an unwelcome distraction for the crew; as she is waiting for Vane to join her in the cabin, she hears his first mate, who remained mostly silent throughout the meeting, address him outside the cabin door.

Robert Deal is several years older than Vane, looking to be in his early or mid-forties to Vane's late thirties. Other than that, he could pass for Vane from a distance: tall and broad-shouldered, if slightly bulkier, with his brown hair falling about his shoulders in long braids, not unlike Vane's if more unkempt. In that sense he is not dissimilar from much of the crew Vane brought with him from heaven knows where when he occupied the fort; as far as Eleanor can recall, Deal was, in fact, one of that party. But the similarity does not hold up to close scrutiny: where Vane resembles a wolf in his predatory grace, Deal is more akin to a bull, his eyes and his wits both a degree duller. Yet when he speaks, Eleanor understand at once what made Vane single him out for preferment: unquestioning loyalty.

"Captain, I did not want to say anything during the meeting so as not to be seen challenging you, but I must tell you in confidence… I fear the Guthrie woman is bad news for us indeed, she will cause too much temptation for the crew and who knows how that can turn out-"

Vane does not seem to have much patience for such concerns, however.

"Rob, I said so in the meeting, anyone who touches her will face punishment from me-"

"And then they'll hold it against you, Captain, and you'll make yourself enemies because of her. I cannot tell you what to do but if it were my choice I'd say send this wench away on a rowboat as soon as we are in sight of Charlestown and be done with her."

"Rob…"

Hearing the menace in Vane's voice, he changes tack, although by the sound of it, he knows it to too much of an uphill battle.

"I have my life's story to show for the evil of women. That murder conviction that I carry, the reason I've been walking under the gallows for the past ten years, is all because of a cheating wench of a wife. I come home from a voyage back on Grand Turk and see her and her lover fucking like nobody's business, I get so mad I take my cutlass and hack at them, and the next thing I know, I am in prison with a hanging sentence and my son is being brought up by near-strangers. If I hadn't escaped and walked into that man Albinus' camp, I'd have been dead ten years ago."

"Not all women are like that," Vane says, apparently overlooking the fact that Eleanor's record when it comes to treacherous behaviour is very far from spotless.

"But they all bring bad luck, Captain." By now Deal sounds like he knows he lost the argument.

"Try tell that to Anne, Rob," is Vane's flippant reply. "See what she says."

As soon as he comes into the cabin she puts her arms around him, upon which he picks her up and carries her back into the bunk, takes off the shirt to expose her gaping dress, pulls out the hairpins and sucks her breasts until she begs him repeatedly to fuck her – and then eagerly does so, until she sees stars and screams his name loud enough for the entire ship to hear.

xxx

He fell asleep with his head cradled on her chest, her hand running through his hair, as she wondered whether they had ever before permitted themselves such an intimate arrangement. She is therefore surprised, not to mention unnerved, to wake up late in the afternoon to see him sitting on the side of the bunk with a dagger in his hand.

Seeing her awake, however, and seeing her wide eyes, he is quick to set her mind at ease by flipping the weapon around and offering it to her hilt-first.

"You don't trust your crew?" she asks.

"I do; but I'll trust them even more knowing you have this," he says darkly, before adding, in a quieter voice, "and I hope that the next time you decide to turn on me, you will stab me in the chest and not in the back."

She would object, but the weight of her betrayals is too heavy on her shoulders. The only thing that could convince him, she knows, is seeing practical proof of her loyalty; but while she cannot offer that now, she can at least make a decisive enough gesture.

She grips the hilt in her right hand, holds out her left palm and sticks the point into it, cutting a red line about two inches long before he can stop her or say anything; and then, holding up her hand as the drops of blood trickle down to her wrist, she swears by this blood that she will not betray him again, and the tears brimming in her eyes all this while have nothing to do with pain.

And upon hearing her say it, he takes her bloody hand in hers, bends his head and licks the scarlet drops off her skin until the cut stops bleeding; then he leans back in the bunk and pulls her into his lap for another bout of what by now should qualify not merely as _fucking_ but as _lovemaking_ , the two of them facing each other, their lips locked as they try to prolong the sweet torment. When at some point Jack Rackham raps on the door to summon them for dinner, he answers, unsteadily, that _they are not hungry_ ; and she is positive that right after Jack says _I bet you aren't_ she hears him snickering behind the door… but neither of them cares.

.

TBC

.

If you look at a map of New Providence, Arawak Cay is about 100 yards or less offshore between Nassau and Brown's Point, which is my location for The Wrecks; thus it would only be about half a mile away from where Max left Eleanor, explaining how she could have tipped off Vane and how he could get there in time to get Eleanor out.

The story of how Jack and Anne stole the _William_ in Nassau harbour is as close a rendition as I could deliver of how they really stole it in August 1720. I could post an extract here, but re-typing extracts is an honour I exclusively reserve for Charles Vane in my book ;)

Robert Deal is a real partner of Vane's; while little is known of his life other than the last year, and the fact that he was hanged on Jamaica shortly before Vane, what *is* known points to his staunch loyalty to his boss.

My mention of a 12-year relationship history for Vane and Eleanor is based on a fairly exact calculation; however, it will be easier to explain it, along with the situation with their respective ages, all in one place when I post a note to Chapter 9… so bear with me for a bit longer.

I suspect I am unlikely to face criticism for making Vane a somewhat overtly sweeter guy than we are used to in the show (though I confess it is hard to imagine the show's Vane smiling; I had to use Zach's real life clips as a mental reference for that), but I would still like to state that the notion of Vane willing to make concessions to Eleanor to the point where he could consider a change of lifestyle, so long as he stayed free from any power, if she would stay with him is not my invention. Just as I trust historical sources for the real Captain Vane's life story, I can think of no better authority on the show's incarnation of Vane than Zach McGowan; and so I post below excerpts from three online articles where he voiced his opinion in interviews (you can read the full versions if you search for the article names).

 **Zach's interviews re Vane**

EW ( _Black Sails_ casualty speaks out about traumatic death scene)

As far as Eleanor goes, my favorite scene ever was episode 1, season 2 where I'm having sex with Idelle and she comes up and I'm like, "Why don't you want a perfect life? What's wrong with you? I love you, I know you love me, I know you have all these ambitions about stuff but that doesn't matter. Why don't we have kids and just own this thing?" I feel like I said that to my now-wife so many times and she finally was like, "OK, we should do this." Life is not as complicated as we make it. I love you, you love me, let's get married and have children and work hard towards things and fuck everything else. To me, life is a lot simpler than people make it. "I'll sleep with prostitutes if you don't want to sleep with me anymore but I'd rather be sleeping with you and we could have a house and make babies." I feel like that is a journey that many men are on in life. "I guess I'll sleep with whoever, but I'd rather sleep with you and we can cuddle because we like doing that." That was how I was feeling that way about it and wasn't sure if that was coming across.

IGN (Black Sails: Zach McGowan on the pivotal events following Vane's capture)

[re Eleanor beating him up in prison] I think he sees the tragedy in it that hopefully the audience sees. They could have had a very uninteresting – you know, uninteresting for a television show – but they could have had a good life together and that it was her choice that other things were more important to her than a life with him. So I think he's very sad that she has chosen ambition or whatever instead of the love for him, which he felt like she felt at some point and that he felt towards her. So yeah, I think it was very bitter for him in that way. What I love about that scene is that she beats up a defenseless, chained man and calls him an animal. I think that speaks for itself.

When you play a badass like Vane, the only thing that makes that interesting is the vulnerability, so I feel like exploring his vulnerabilities was always the part that was most interesting to me, as an actor. The things I had the most _fun_ with were when I was playing him as a badass, but the things that were most _interesting_ were the vulnerabilities.

Digital Spy (Zach McGowan opens up about his Black Sails exit: "I couldn't imagine a better way of going out")

I think that he has loads of regrets. I think what he regrets the most is that he wasn't able to find a life for himself, or a family for himself.


	8. Quarrel

xxx

.

"Ship ahoy, Captain!"

Standing on the quarterdeck just outside the captain's cabin, Eleanor hears the cry with a mix of excitement and guilt, knowing how the chase that might follow would likely spell grave peril for the other ship's crew and passengers; and yet she reminds herself that for years she took in stolen goods from pirate captains that were acquired in a similar fashion; now she merely happens to witness it. But after three weeks sailing with Charles Vane and his men, she has also seen that the reports of his cruelty were somewhat exaggerated; perhaps intentionally so, as pirates depend on frightening reputations for the speedy surrender of their prey. In reality, as they sailed up north toward the Carolina coast before doubling back past Green Turtle Cay toward the Windward Passage, they have encountered and sacked three ships where the crews, having signalled their lack of resistance to the requisitioning of their cargo, were afterwards left to their own devices poorer but safe and sound. Even the fourth of these, the brigantine she is on now, which Vane, showing a remarkable lack of creative spirit, has named _Ranger_ , had its old crew deposited onshore at an inlet a hundred miles or so south of Charlestown – and it might be testament to the tolerable treatment that they received that more than a dozen men from that crew are still on board now, having asked to join their captors and go a-pirating.

Yet as the would-be prey heaves closer in sight, her excitement gives way to growing dread, seeing how fucking huge this ship apparently is. It is now about two miles away, and at that distance its towering white sails and tall hull are imposing enough already; she is not sure she is particularly keen on taking a look up close, and should this become a full-on naval engagement, she is not sure about the odds of their own side coming up winners. They are two ships, sure, but where a brigantine and a sloop might have advantage in terms of speed, they may not be much of a match in terms of firepower. If she is a merchantman, they could be lucky, phenomenally so, as it would not have more than four cannon and a couple dozen crew – and if so, would make for an extremely valuable prize if they could take over the vessel itself, apart from whatever cargo she might be hauling. If, however, she turned out to be a man-of-war, the fortunes would be neatly reversed, as they could easily carry a couple dozen cannon and a hundred or so crew, in which case they, with eighteen cannon and sixty men among them, are, for lack of a better term, royally fucked.

Right now, from what she hears of the discussion between the pirate officers on deck, hope and the attendant excitement seem to prevail, seeing how most of them are certain that they are faced with the first scenario… which looks to be rotten news either way, seeing how Vane is convinced, or at least very apprehensive, of dealing with the second.

Of all people, Jack Rackham makes an unlikely but annoyingly enthusiastic proponent of a speedy engagement, having taken Vane aside and muttering to him in an urgent voice as Anne looks on; Eleanor suspects that Jack's eagerness may have something to do with Anne having branded him a _fucking pussy_ three days ago for apparently not being up to her standards of valour in their encounter with the last ship they sacked.

"Look, Charles… Captain, if we can get our hands on her we'll have ourselves one hell of a flagship, no worse than those of your friend Blackbeard and Black Bart Roberts! With it we can get better prizes, we can even get ourselves a flotilla! Fuck Flint, we'll be the lords of the Caribbean, we can go liberate Nassau…"

"And then we go across the ocean and blockade all of England's ports and hold her hostage," Vane continues sarcastically. "Before you let your wild imagination run too far ahead of reality, Jack, let us first ascertain that she is indeed a merchantman. And then even if she is, think about where we'll find a crew to man her out here."

In that instant Jack looks like an infant deprived of a beloved toy, and seeing him like that, Anne makes a contemptuous grimace. She looks bent on driving a wedge between Vane and Jack, Eleanor muses, wondering if Eleanor herself is the all-too-transparent reason for that or if Anne is giving vent to much older, deeper-lying resentment of Vane for having once abandoned them over the killing of the remainder of Vane's crew that Anne had orchestrated – ironically, together with Eleanor; resentment that seemed long forgotten, but then, Anne has always been a vindictive bitch who could give Eleanor more than a run for her money in that department.

That, apparently, is all the inducement Jack needs to resume his tirade, this time raising his voice in an invitation for the other officers to join in the discussion.

"Are we not the best pirate crew this side of Ocracoke island? Don't you trust us to fight our best, Charles?"

Again Anne makes a sour face, and while Eleanor could not care less what the other woman thinks of her partner's degree of courage, Eleanor resents the blatant way Anne is thus manipulating her partner into opposing his captain. Surely, having been a captain himself, Jack should appreciate the need for discipline.

Then again, maybe it is the very fact that he has voluntarily relinquished command to Vane that Jack is beginning to have second thoughts about.

Either way, Vane will not have any of it; he draws, almost drags, Jack aside by the arm, away from Anne and the rest, to where Eleanor can hear him snarling quietly at his associate.

"What the fuck are you doing, Jack? Starting mutiny? Do you need to be reminded that while all decisions on board are taken by majority vote, there is one kind-" he stares at Rackham from about ten inches away, "that is the captain's absolute prerogative, and that is the right of determining in all questions concerning fighting, chasing, and being chased. Don't you dare forget that."

Jack looks contrite until he sees Anne scowling in the distance; but then he does not pursue the argument. Oddly, Vane apparently decides to be conciliatory.

"We hoist the black as soon as we draw near and see what she does; it is not long now". Indeed, the distance between the two ships has already shrunk to half a mile. "If she strikes her colours, I am with you, Jack, regarding boarding her. If not…" He shrugs, but his back remains rigid. "We'll see what to do."

He is soon proven right in the least encouraging manner. As soon as they have raised the black flag, their would-be prey turns predator as she raises the French colours and almost immediately thereafter delivers a deafening broadside upon them; and while the damage is minor at present, it is obvious that with the next and any subsequent salvoes, should they follow, they will not be so lucky.

"She's a man-of-war," Vane says to Jack and the officers in an _I-told-you-so_ manner; as if there was any doubt by then, before giving the order to trim the sails and stand away.

But when that happens, instead of considering its goal accomplished and standing down, the Frenchman is seen to be setting all sails.

The next half hour or so is spent in a nerve-racking chase. Their two ships, smaller than the man-of-war now pursuing them, are more manoeuvrable; but whereas Vane looks content to take advantage of that to get away, the others see it as a missed opportunity; and seeing how Jack Rackham had been trying to reason with Vane earlier, the officers and some of the crew soon rally round him in an increasingly vocal mob as the chase progresses – and seeing his vitriolic lover for once regarding him with approval and encouragement, he resumes their argument, only this time it is not the two of them on quarterdeck, but Vane facing them all on the main deck.

"She is too strong for us to cope with," Vane insists; and while his steely voice gives them momentary pause, they soon start muttering again, finding strength in numbers; and presently Jack speaks up once more.

"It is true she has more guns, Captain, and a greater weight of metal, but so long as we may board her, the best boys will carry the day," he insists; and while his assertion is questionable at best – fucking ridiculous, to be precise – it is met with what sounds like universal approval.

"It is too rash and desperate an enterprise. The man-of-war appears to be twice our force. We shall be sunk by her before we could reach to board her."

"Captain's right," a unexpected voice joins in. She peers at the group: Robert Deal, the same first mate who earlier privately tried to persuade Vane to get rid of her, has now decided to publicly take his side. "We'll all be drowned if we do as Mr Rackham says."

His grim tone gives the others pause, and presently a few supporting voices pipe up; but they are soon drowned out by the majority baying for battle.

Seeing how the scene has by now become one of general confusion, Eleanor sneaks down to the main deck and sidles up to Vane.

"Charles, I want you to know that if your decision has anything whatsoever to do with me being here, then do reconsider. The last thing I want is to be a cause of a challenge to your authority," she mutters in his ear while the others are not looking at them, too busy arguing.

"It's a tactical decision, Eleanor," he mutters back. "Go back to the quarterdeck." She obeys with a sigh.

xxx

They ended up making a clean escape from the Frenchman, after Vane invoked his exclusive authority as the captain to make the final decision; but if she thought the matter over, she is sorely disappointed the following morning.

He comes back, or rather stalks back, into the cabin, after a crew meeting on deck that she was clearly not expected to attend; and seeing his expression she is initially lost for words; she just walks over to him and puts her hand over his as he stands leaning with both arms against the table, his shoulders hunched and his head bent low. She knows that whatever it is, she is more likely to be part of the problem rather than the solution; but he shifts his hand just enough to squeeze her fingers in a tiny token of gratitude for the implicit comfort she is offering.

Before she can ask him what the matter is, there is a rap on the door, and he straightens up and turns away from the table to answer it, but apparently hesitates. It is obvious from his set expression and rigid movements that he hates the prospect of going out there to face whoever has made the summons.

"Captain?" Jack's voice comes through the door; and Eleanor makes up her mind.

Silently, she motions toward the door leading out onto the stern gallery, a narrow balcony going the length of the captain's cabin just outside; and seeing him nod in appreciation, she slips through it just before Vane tells his associate to come in. This way at least he will be facing him on his own territory, and in relative privacy.

Facing _them_ , as it turns out; Eleanor scowls as she hears Anne Bonny's voice from inside the cabin as she stands behind the stern gallery door, careful not to be seen through the large stern windows.

"You've had your say," Vane greets them with a low snarl. "What the fuck do you want now?"

"Charles, there's still a way you could set this straight-" Jack starts cautiously before Vane cuts him off.

"Get the fucking hell out of here." His tone is nothing short of murderous.

Jack seems willing to heed the instruction, or at least to keep silent; but Anne cuts in for him.

"Charles, think about it, just be rational for a moment and think. What is the point of choosing her over us? Everyone thinks that your decision not to engage the Frenchman yesterday was because you feared for her, that you were too worried about this stupid cunt-"

 _Tactical decision_ , his words from yesterday flash in her mind. She has seen Charles Vane take a tactical decision of this sort before; and its name was Ned Low.

Anne's voice cuts off abruptly, replaced by a strangled squeak. There is a sound of a scuffle, followed by retreating footsteps and then, in quick succession, the door being slammed shut with a thunderous bang and the quieter, more muffled sound of a body hitting the floorboards. Eleanor hopes, for his sake, that he has managed not to resort to murder on this occasion; she thus derives a measure of bleak satisfaction when the commotion is finally punctuated by a shrill curse yelled from a distance.

"You were saying, Jack," Vane presently continues, back in the cabin and seemingly in more collected spirits.

"You aren't going to back down, Charles," the other man says with a dejected sigh. It was meant to be a question but does not come out as such.

"You know it, Jack," Vane says, so quietly that Eleanor can barely hear him. "So why are you asking?"

"I am just… sorry that we're parting on such terms, Cap… Charles. I made sure you and your crew are going to have enough provisions and ammunition so you could provide for yourselves by your own honest endeavours, as it were." That last bit about _honest endeavours_ sounds rather like Jack's trademark wry humour, but this time it falls disappointingly flat.

The realisation feels like a pile of ice at the pit of her stomach. They are being turned out of the ship, which can only mean that Vane has lost his command. Because of her. A second time.

"You think it's going to help?" The pain in his voice is like a punch in the gut. "After they branded me a coward, passed a resolution against my honour and dignity, after me and the men who supported me in what I insist was a sound tactical decision were turned out of the company with marks of infamy; you think that I care fuck all about provisions and shot?"

Eleanor sinks down to the floor of the gallery, tasting blood on her lip where she bit it.

At least her pain is somewhat echoed in Rackham's voice.

"I'm sorry, Charles. I truly am. I hope we meet again on better terms-"

"Fuck you, Jack."

This is followed by a long silence; eventually, from the sound of it, Rackham skulks away to the door and closes it behind him.

She is glad when Vane follows him out a couple of minutes later. She can hardly stand straight, let alone face him.

xxx

Nightfall finds them on board the _William_ once again, seeing how the sloop, which had trailed the brigantine with a skeleton crew these past two weeks, has been put at their disposal; except that rather than the prize from a fortunate caper that it seemed just under a month ago, it is now a symbol of humiliating defeat, as Vane, Eleanor and the fifteen men who supported Vane in the confidence vote, including the stoical Deal and a visibly crushed Tanner, board it and set sail away from what is now Jack Rackham's brigantine.

Once on board, the crewmen busy themselves with adjusting the rigging and stowing the provisions, gunpowder and cannon shot that they were given; and Eleanor can think of nothing better she can do for them, and for Vane who is directing them, than to stay out of their sight. But instead of the captain's cabin, she goes back to the storeroom that was her first lodgings on board the sloop, and sits there on the floor against the familiar chest, reflecting how her life performed a complete about-turn in the space of a month, and having boarded it with newly awoken remorse and vague hope vis-à-vis Charles Vane, she has now returned more in love with him than ever, yet having once more become an instrument of his torment. She would cry for him now, if her own shame had been less intense; as it is, she is too busy hating herself. Had she not acted the way she had toward him and toward his associates all these past months – past years – they would not have had reason to hate her so much now, and consequently would probably have been more understanding, even if only marginally, of what they saw as Vane's unjustifiable motive for avoiding an engagement with what, it was still painfully obvious, was an extremely dangerous and superior adversary. And now all she can do is face the consequences; except that the most painful brunt of this aftermath is on his shoulders, not hers. She prays with all her heart that whatever happens to her next, he is so wildly successful in his piracy endeavours in the next few days and weeks as to put Jack Rackham and his crew to complete and utter shame.

She stays like that until after dark, wondering distantly if it is already past lights out; but when she is about to crawl onto the chest and settle in for a solitary and uncomfortable night's sleep, he steps into the storeroom, sees her there heaven knows how, leads her up to his cabin without a word, and just holds her all night.

.

TBC

.

I should not admit to having favourites or least-favourites within my own story, but have to confess that whereas chapter 6 is easily my top favourite, even though almost all others, both posted and yet unwritten in full, are very close behind, this past one ties with chapter 2 for the unenviable title of least favourite – but for pretty much the opposite reason. Where my problem with chapter 2 lies with the unfavourable and somewhat implausible portrayal of Woodes Rogers vis-à-vis reality and, to an extent, vis-à-vis the show, here my issue is that, .having a detailed eyewitness account (though I have no idea of who relayed it to the chronicler), I felt obliged to stick by it even as it painted a less appealing portrait of Jack Rackham, and especially of Anne Bonny, than the show would have us believe (although as you will later see from my notes to chapter 10, real-life Anne was quite a royal bitch) – while salvaging what I could of Jack's nice-guy credentials. At least Eleanor's' fictional presence ties in perfectly with real events to give Charles extra motive to flee from the Frenchman, a motive that the crew would resent. To prove my point, and hopefully to provide a curious background bit, I paste below an excerpt from the 1724 account of Vane's and Rackham's quarrel recorded by Captain Charles Johnson in his famous book on pirates; as you can see, I tried to provide the closest rendition of the events and relevant quotes.

* * *

[November 23 1718] "they fell in with a ship, which it was expected would have struck as soon as their black colours were hoisted; but instead of this she discharged a broadside upon the pirate, and hoisted French colours which showed her to be a French man-of-war. Vane desired to have nothing more to say to her, but trimmed his sails, and stood away from the Frenchman; however, Monsieur having a mind to be better informed who he was, set all sails and crowded after him. During this chase the pirates were divided in their resolution what to do. Vane, the captain, was for making off as fast as he could, alleging that the man-or-war was too strong for them to cope with; but one John Rackham, their quarter-master, and one who was a kind of check upon the captain, rose up in defence of a contrary opinion, saying, "that though she had more guns, and a greater weight of metal, they might board her, and then the best boys would carry the day." Rackham was well seconded, and the majority was for boarding; but Vane urged, "that it was too rash and desperate an enterprise, the man-of-war appearing to be twice their force, and that their brigantine might be sunk by her before they could reach to board her. The mate, one Robert Deal, was of Vane's opinion, as were about fifteen more, and all the rest joined with Rackham the quarter-master. At length the captain made use of his power to determine the dispute, which in these cases is absolute and uncontrollable, by their own laws, viz., the captain's absolute right of determining in all questions concerning fighting chasing or being chased; in all other matters whatsoever the captain being governed by a majority; so the brigantine having the heels, as they term it, of the Frenchman, she came clear off.

But the next day, the captain's conduct was obliged to stand the test of a vote, and a resolution passed against his honour and dignity, which branded him with the name of coward, deposed him from command, and turned him out of the company with marks of infamy; and with him went all those who did not vote for boarding the French man-of-war. They had with them a small sloop that had been taken by them some time before, which they gave to Vane and the discarded members; and that they might be in a condition to provide for themselves by their own honest endeavours, they let them have a sufficient quantity of provisions and ammunition.

John Rackham was voted captain of the brigantine in Vane's room, and he proceeded towards the Caribbee islands […]"

* * *

Purely for entertainment, I also paste here a conflicting, definitely less plausible but funnier take on the same events that was included as an appendix in the same book (unless Vane and Rackham made a habit of quarrelling, that is, in which case both occasions might have been real).

* * *

"The empire of these pirates had not been long thus divided [ie Rackham was made captain of the captured Kingston] before they had like to have fallen into a civil war amongst themselves, which must have ended in the destruction of one of them. The fatal occasion for the difference betwixt these two brother adventurers was this: it happened that Vane's liquor was all out, who sending to his brother captain for a supply, Rackam accordingly spared him what he thought fit; but it falling short of Vane's expectations as to quantity, he went on board of Rackham's ship to expostulate the matter with him; so that words arising, Rackham threatened to shoot him through the head, if he did not immediately return to his own ship, and told him likewise that if he did not sheer off and part company he would sink him. Vane thought it best to take his advice."

* * *

By way of a minor remark, I use _ship_ here in the modern usage of any large sea-going vessel; back then it denoted specifically a three-mast square-rigged one, while smaller ones were called sloop (one or two masts), brigantine (two masts), etc. Contrary to what movies would have you believe, most pirate crafts were relatively small, with sloops being by far the most common.

Finally, it is true that the real Vane seemed fond of the name _Ranger,_ as he did indeed give it to two captured ships he owned in succession. Truth be told, it was quite a popular name among pirate ships, the others being _Revenge_ (and variations thereon) and _Fancy_ , while many Navy ships were named after fast animals and birds (e.g. _Swallow_ ), whereas commercial vessels often featured names of royalty and variations on the name _Pearl_.


	9. Shipwrecked

On this occasion I must put up a technical note up front, as the events described here may be tricky to understand without it. _Shrouds_ are arguably the most visible part of the ship's rigging, those tall triangular-shaped, sort of square-mesh-spiderweb cables that connect the hull to the masts.

.

xxx

.

For ten weeks, it seemed as if Heaven had answered her prayer; for the success of Vane's ventures after the break-up with Rackham and most of the crew continued undiminished, on par with his daring depredations throughout the preceding year. So much so, in fact, that by early February he had a brigantine and three excellent sloops at his disposal, and a combined crew numbering more than twice the number of those who had stayed aboard the second _Ranger_ with Jack and Anne.

Back in early December, having cruised back east from the Bay of Honduras to Jamaica's northwest coast, they captured a second sloop, whose crew decided to join them, and Vane appointed Robert Deal as its captain as a reward for his loyalty. Then, on the 16th, having gone back to the wide bay, they found only one vessel at anchor, a brigantine called the _Pearl of Jamaica_ , that attempted to get under sail at the sight of them but was apprehended by Vane and Deal's sloops flying no colours, and the captain's feeble attempt at warning gunfire resulted in the two of them hoisting black flags and returning fire in a manner decisive enough to ensure a quick surrender. From there they took the _Pearl_ (whose name Eleanor had persuaded him to keep, albeit dropping the _Jamaica_ part, as opposed to reverting to _Ranger_ a third time) to a small island called Barnacho for careening, in preparation for a larger campaign; and while en route there, in a further stroke of luck they met with a sloop from Jamaica going down to the bay, which they also captured.

And then, as the _Pearl_ was being refitted as their flagship, and Vane and Deal took two sloops and sailed from Barnacho for a cruise at the beginning of February as a final step to amass a force large enough to take back Nassau, which he was still resolved to do no matter how Eleanor tried to dissuade him, their luck ran out.

xxx

"Come in here and stay inside." For the third time in recent months she is back inside the storeroom, its porthole now bolted tightly shut. With the stern windows in the captain's cabin blown out already, it is by far the safer place. "Don't bolt the door, make sure you can open it again. I'll come back for you." With that he sprints back on deck, taking the ladder steps two at a time, as the sloop lists and heaves on the raging waves, battered by the storm.

It came out of nowhere; it is almost unheard of to have storms, let alone hurricanes of such force, in February, almost three months after the end of the hurricane season. And yet for the past day and night they have been relentlessly battered by gale-force winds and sheets of rain, with no end in sight. They lost Deal's sloop overnight and are now being tossed about, presumably still somewhere in the Bay of Honduras, at the mercy of the tempest. Now, with the darkening skies signalling the approach of a second night, there is no telling if their sloop, or they for that matter, will live to see the morning.

She jumps and screams as the porthole hatch is ripped off its hinges and a stream of water, powerful enough to kick her off her feet, fills the storeroom. She sees what Vane meant: had she locked the door, she might not have had the steady footing, or the presence of mind in a cabin flooding with water, to unlock it now. She darts outside, the water following at her heels, and runs up the ladder.

She can hardly see the deck in the heavy rain; dimly, she sees silhouettes of men trying desperately to steer the sloop to keep it more or less upright; with all the sails rolled up, their capacity for manoeuvre would be minimal at best, but from what she can see, the masts are already missing almost all the crossbeams, meaning that the sails are gone.

"Charles!" she yells over the infernal howling when she catches sight of him near her.

"What is it?" He yells back, turning to face her.

"Cabin's flooded, I couldn't stay there. Should I go into the hold?"

"No! Hold's sprung a leak, it will flood too in a matter of hours." Meaning that they will sink.

"What do you want me to do?"

Before he can answer she sees his eyes go wide in terror; and before she can wonder what sort of sight could put terror in Charles Vane's heart, she turns around and sees it.

An enormous twisted column of water, black against the grey skies, narrow but impossibly tall, is looming in front of them, getting closer. She has heard of these things; water spouts if she recalls right, the innocent name belying the attendant horror. Now she is looking at one up close, wishing she had never had the chance.

"Don't look!" he yells to her belatedly. "Hold on to me." With that, he drags them to the far side of the deck from the hellish spectacle and grabs the rigging while trying to hold her in the crook of his arm, facing him so she would be shielded from the onslaught when it comes.

She wraps both arms around his chest and holds on with all her might, eyes squeezed shut, hoping desperately that they are still alive in a few minutes' time – or if they should not be so fortunate, that they at least have the fortune of dying together.

It feels as if a wall of water hits her, flinging them both against the shroud. She has a flash of realisation amid the terror: he dragged them both there so the shroud should stop them from being swept overboard, standing between them and the sea below. But in the next few seconds all she can think of is telling herself not to draw breath, as they are seemingly submerged in the enormous wave. Just when it seems that her lungs can hold out no longer, the water recedes, and she is left clinging to her companion, coughing and spitting out water, but alive; and considering how fast he has his arm wrapped around her as the sloop is swept along in the gathering darkness, he is alive, too.

"It's gone past us," she hears him yell. "We-"

He is interrupted by a blood-curdling screeching sound as the sloop suddenly shudders to a halt, followed by the horrifying creak of the hull being rent apart.

"Eleanor, hold on!" he snaps, and letting go of the shroud, launches them both across the deck where he grabs the lowest rung of the opposite shroud.

She never has the chance to ask him the reason for this manoeuvre, as in the next moment she is startled by what sounds like a thunderclap right above their heads; but when she squints up through the torrential rain she sees the mainmast slowly breaking off four or five feet above the base, the top slowly descending towards larboard.

Vane grabs one of her wrists and pulls it up until her left hand wraps around a shroud cable.

"Hold on!" he repeats before doing the same with her right wrist. "Don't try to stand on the deck, just hold on."

She soon sees why; propelled by the falling mast and held in place by an invisible force, the entire sloop begins listing to larboard, slowly but unstoppably, until it comes to a halt at an angle that would make standing on deck impossible; had she tried to do so without having anything to hold on to, she would have slid into the sea below.

By then it is almost completely dark; and she feels a surge of panic when she realises that she can no longer tell where Vane is.

"Charles!" she yells; and is immediately relieved when he answers, but by the sound of it he seems a few feet away from her, somewhere above. "Where are you?"

"Hang on there a moment." Had the situation been less dire, she would have seen the irony in that she is literally hanging on. "I'll pull you up here."

The next moment she feels his hand grab her wrist, then his other hand on the other, and he hauls her up so that the next instant she is sprawled on his chest, apparently on top of the shroud… if top is an applicable term, for the fallen mast has taken the upper end of the shroud with it to the water's edge, and the entire tall, square-celled triangular net has turned into a sort of gigantic hammock, suspended above the sharply sloping deck, with its far end submerged thirty feet or so to the larboard side, about a dozen feet below. Presently, in the gathering inky darkness, she can no longer tell the outlines of the wrecked sloop from the choppy waves and the black shapes of ragged clouds against occasional glimmers of deep blue where the cloud cover is marginally thinner.

Yet from what she has seen, their position, while relatively secure, may not be safe for long. The lower rungs of the shrouds they are lying on are higher up above the deck, but they also have far bigger gaps between the cables; so that if they stay there, they will be at constant risk of falling down. Sure enough, Vane knows it too, and is presently explaining to her that they must move, crawling slowly up the rungs but down the shroud "hammock" to where the gaps are narrower, even if it brings them closer to the waves. When he sets her onto the cables beside him she freezes, unsure how she can keep her balance, let alone crawl forward; and sensing her panic, Vane gets hold of her hand and coaxes her on, putting her hand on the cable junctures and waiting for her as she inches her way ahead. At long last they reach a spot that seems to be an acceptable if dangerous balance between rung width and distance from the waves, even though hearing the raging water mere feet below is unsettling to say the least. Exhausted from the ordeal, she is tempted to close her eyes as she exhales and sags against the cables. The wind has slowed down a good deal, but the rain is still pelting down.

"Eleanor?"

"Yes?" she answers, half drowsily.

"You all right?" His voice is instantly alert and concerned.

"Yes. Just tired."

"Don't fall asleep."

"I'll try not to."

Another minute passes.

"Eleanor, are you here?"

"Yes, Charles. I- maybe I can sleep just a little bit…"

She can feel him pull up next to her.

"Don't do that. You fall asleep in this darkness, and I won't be able to see you if you slip off, or find you in the water. Stay awake, and we can make it till morning."

She does not ask him what relief morning might bring if they are still stuck on a wrecked husk in the middle of the sea; instead, she goes for a more immediate question.

"What happened to our sloop? Why are we stuck like this?"

"Struck a reef. At least it makes it less likely that we'll drown." Dying of thirst and hunger is, of course, another matter. "And reefs are often close to land. With any luck, we may be within reach of a habitable island." There, at least, is a glimmer of hope.

Time passes; the rain slacks off somewhat, and listening to the constant splash of the waves against the broken hull, she fights the drowsiness as the rhythmic sound threatens to lull her to sleep.

"Eleanor, are you awake?"

If she had not known better and been grateful to him for keeping her from a drowning death, she would be annoyed at him for not letting her rest.

"Yes, I am."

"I don't like the way you sound."

"I'm trying, Charles. What can I do, I keep listening to the waves and they make me sleepy-"

"Don't listen. Talk."

She is baffled by this. "What about?"

"Anything. Anything at all. It won't let you fall asleep, and I'll be able to tell if you get drowsy."

"What about you?"

"I'm used to this. I've had to stand watch at night hundreds of times."

"Very well…" she begins uncertainly. "Let me think-"

"Don't think; talk."

Easy for him to say, but she needs a subject – and with their past history being veritably full of death traps, not any old subject will do. Besides, it would make sense to talk about something he does not already know.

Thus her first impulse is to tell him about her involuntary trip to London and her sojourn in Newgate prison; but she dismisses it almost immediately seeing how that would soon bring her on the subject of Woodes Rogers. She is just about to plead defeat and ask him to suggest a subject for her when she finally gets an idea.

She starts talking about her childhood, her early life that he had not witnessed and she never told him about; their Boston family, countless generations of merchants who eventually produced a bunch of miserable fuck-ups; her mother, who had the reckless lack of foresight to have married one of them; their early years in Nassau, before the massacre unleashed by the Spanish raid that cost her mother her life. There is plenty of pain there too, but at least it is not pain that she has inflicted on him.

"What about you?" she asks when she seems to have finally exhausted the topic.

He does not answer at once, and while she knows he is there, she begins wondering if he has disobeyed his own instructions, as it were, and fallen asleep when he finally speaks.

"There isn't much to tell. My first memory was sitting on a chain like a dog in the slave camp and eating leftovers. I must have been about three."

It feels like a stab through the heart, and her throat suddenly hurts so much that she finds it hard to form the words.

"How long were you there?"

"Twenty years. I have no memory of my parents. The closest I've ever had to family was when I joined Blackbeard's crew and then when I got my own and Jack Rackham came aboard… so in a way you were right, saying how I never experienced a mother's love."

For an instant she is tempted to let go of the shrouds and just jump into the water below; the searing shame is so intense as to be unbearable… until it occurs to her that by doing so she would probably be causing him even greater heartbreak.

"Forgive me."

"It's true." He sounds matter-of-fact. "I did not care much for the way you said it, but it doesn't make it a lie."

She does not want to remind him of the disgusting insults she hurled at him on that same occasion.

"When did you escape? Which year?"

"1703, about mid-March. Almost exactly sixteen years ago."

Which means that he still has at least six years to go before he can say that the greater part of his life has been lived free. "So if I reckon right, you must be thirty-nine?"

"Thirty-eight or thirty-nine, I suppose, though I'll never know for sure."

"Ten years older than me."

"Or ten and a half. Or maybe eleven."

"So you came straight to Nassau when you escaped." Not quite, she corrects herself; if he escaped at about twenty three, and she was almost fourteen when he first saw her.

"I sailed with Henry Jennings for a couple of years. I was pretty strong from doing all the labour, and he took me on as soon as he saw me. I was still with his crew when we first came to Nassau, as you may recall. It was almost a year later when I met Blackbeard and he offered to make me an officer straight away that Jennings and I parted ways. He tried to bribe me to stay, you know," he adds, and she can hear the wry amusement in his voice. "But I knew him for the wily bastard that he was..."

"He's still alive, isn't he? Jennings, I mean?"

"He is, but he took the pardon. Was pretty much the first to do so, even before this circus that your- that Governor Rogers started." She thinks that had this exchange occurred in broad daylight, or at least in less perilous conditions, she would have found some manner of minor torment to inflict on him for that unfinished quip. Well, the physical means may be out of the question, but that still does not rule out the verbal variety.

"If he was the wily bastard you make him out to be, you two should have been best friends."

It seems Vane himself is well enough aware of his slip of the tongue to have connected her remark with it; and as a consequence, rather than take offence, he takes it in stride.

"We got along just fine, but Teach and I – Blackbeard and I – instantly got along a lot better. Jennings was wily, but Teach is just, I don't know, imposing in a way that made me instantly respect him. And he saw me as someone he could bring up in his image, and taught me to keep my anger in check, which Jennings had never bothered to do. I think Jennings just saw it as an advantage to himself, no matter what manner of crazy arsehole it made me, that because of my past I was prepared to kill at a moment's notice rather than reflect and show mercy where killing served no purpose, except for traitors."

She suspects – is almost certain, in fact – that he said this without thinking of her; but it does not mean that she does not count herself among that number.

"Why did you go after me at the Wrecks and get me out? I am a traitor too, after all I'd said and done I did not deserve to-"

"I had no choice," he interrupts her, softly but insistently. "I wouldn't have been able to live with it."

"But I betrayed you. I wanted you dead, I almost killed you, surely even if you did not want that gang to kill me, by all accounts you should have killed me yourself?" She knows the question to be irrelevant by now, but it has sat at the back of her mind too long not to be asked, considering how they are stuck there with plenty of time on their hands.

"A lot of people wanted me dead and tried to kill me who I've since made peace with," he says in that same soft, almost conciliatory tone. "And most of them weren't nearly as good-looking as you," he adds with a touch of amusement. "Besides," he adds a moment later, "you may have wanted me dead but at the last instant you still yelled for them to stop."

"You heard me," she exhales in shock.

"I did… you know, I was ready to die just fine, but then hearing you made me curious, made me think what might have been, had you changed your mind a little sooner. So when the boys ran up and got me out I wasn't really complaining. Not that I could possibly imagine all that would then happen in reality."

Right now, it feels as if the one rescued from impending death was not Vane but herself.

"You shouldn't have been."

"What?"

"Ready to die. You are not yet forty, in good health, you still have a life to live-"

"Well, I've lived plenty by now," he counters, "not that I am in a great hurry to die right now."

That leads her, cautiously, to ask him about his seafaring adventures; and he tells her stories of daring exploits and cunning stratagems, and goes on to describe how he and his crew went on board the _Fancy_ to get rid of Low and his crew, how he changed his mind about fighting Flint and went to Charlestown to save him instead – and what a hell of a rescue it was – and how he planned the spectacular escape from Nassau from under her and Rogers' noses by setting the fire ship on a collision course against them. He does most of the talking, but there is no way she can feel sleepy now; if anything, the danger would be her jumping and fidgeting with excitement on their precarious perch as her attention is riveted to his tales.

She asks him then how he came about the fearsome crew that he brought back to win the fort from Hornigold, and he tells her the story of his travel to Albinus's camp… but when he tells her, by way of an entertaining aside, of how he was buried alive there and had to claw his way back from a literal grave, her heartbreak is back full force.

"Eleanor, are you all right?" he asks, noticing how she suddenly fell completely silent.

No, she is not all right; she is thinking how close he came to being dead because of her, not once but twice so far as it turns out, not counting all the other offences, and how she will never be able to fully atone for it. But her voice fails her so she cannot say anything at all; instead she gropes around in the dark until her fingers land on the leather cuff on his forearm, and feeling her touch, he immediately puts his other hand on top of hers.

"Charles… I know you didn't want me to beg for your forgiveness," she starts, "but seeing how we may not live until the morning…"

"I would not necessarily say that," he objects, but she continues, refusing to be sidetracked into levity.

"…just in case, I do beg that you forgive me for all the monstrous things I put you through."

He strokes her fingers as a quick answer. "Whatever happened before," he says presently, "the past three months have made it all worthwhile. And talking about monstrous things, _just in case,_ I'd beg you for the same for killing that old bastard."

She need not ask who he means; yet by now the matter has been rendered irrelevant.

"Never mind, Charles," she answers darkly. "Had I known then what I know now, I would have killed him myself." And not, she thinks, quickly like Vane did; she would have made his existence a living hell.

It could be a trick of her hearing, but she is pretty certain that she hears him chuckling.

"If we survive this," he remarks, all innocence, "do remind me, Eleanor, never to cross you again."

Forget chuckling; she is laughing out loud now.

xxx

They could, it seems, keep talking forever; but eventually exhaustion starts getting the better of her. Sensing this, he finally suggests that she sidle up to him so that he could keep watch over her; the arrangement she insists on is that they take turns, with him guarding her until dawn when she would take over and let him sleep. She is therefore instantly alarmed when she wakes up and can tell, even with her eyes closed, that dawn is long past; when she opens her eyes and sees the dull grey skies above and nothing else, she is terrified at the thought that Vane is gone.

She sits up sharply – and then sees him perched on the shrouds below where she has been lying, almost at the water's edge, having surrendered all the space for her to sleep on, while he clearly never slept a wink watching her.

"I thought you were-" she starts, seeing his surprise at her sudden awakening.

He shakes his head with a smirk. "Still here." So damn smug, and yet looking completely exhausted.

"Oh for fuck's sake come back up," she scolds him, "we agreed to take turns sleeping, didn't we?"

But when he scrambles back to where she is sitting and puts an arm round her shoulders, he is clearly not inclined to sleep.

"I've something really nice to show you," he says instead, pointing off to the distance with his free hand.

And there, between the low clouds and the dull grey sea, is a long, narrow black strip of land, no more than a quarter mile away.

She exhales in relief. "We made it, Charles."

"I told you we would."

Instead of upbraiding him for smugness that, by now, she knows to be just a bit of innocent posturing, she just smiles at him – and when he smiles back at her, it feels as if the leaden post-hurricane skies have parted to fill her world with brilliant sunshine.

.

xxx

.

The hurricane may have given me an interesting opportunity to go all _Titanic the movie_ on our sweethearts, but the story is true, and here is the next bit from Captain Johnson's book to prove it (it picks up immediately after the rift with Rackham).

"The sloop sailed for the bay of Honduras, and Vane and his crew put her in as good a condition as they could by the way, that they might follow their old trade. They cruised two or three days off the north-west part of Jamaica, and took a sloop and two perriaguas, all the men of which entered with them: the sloop they kept, and Robert Deal was appointed captain.

On the 16the of December, the two sloops came into the bay, where the found only one vessel at anchor. She was called the Pearl of Jamaica, and got under sail at the sight of them; but the pirate sloops coming near Rowland, and showing no colours, he gave them a gun or two, whereupon they hoisted the black flag, and fired three guns each at the Pearl. She struck, and the pirates took possession, and carried her away to a small island called Barnacho (Bonacca), where they cleaned. By the way they met with a sloop from Jamaica, as she was going down to the bay, which they also took.

In February, Vane sailed from Barnacho, for a cruise; but, some days after he was out, a violent tornado overtook him, which separated him from his consort, and, after two days' distress, threw his sloop upon a small uninhabited island , near the bay of Honduras, where she staved to pieces, and most of her men were drowned: Vane himself was saved, but reduced to great straits for want of necessaries, having no opportunity to get anything from the wreck,. He lived there some weeks, and was supported chiefly by fishermen, who frequented the island with small crafts from the main, to catch turtles and other fish."

And, as promised, here is the note on Charles' and Eleanor's ages, using as a starting point the real Captain Vane's alleged birth date of 1680 (incidentally, Zach McGowan would be four years younger than Vane, as Wikipedia says he was born in 1981; but I have not seen Hannah New's birthday or age mentioned anywhere).

Vane born ca early 1680 Eleanor born ca mid/late 1690

Vane in slavery until 23 (escapes in 1703) El. is 13-14 in ca late 1704 when Vane sees her

Vane sleeps with Eleanor ca 1707 (aged 26 or 27) El. is 16 in 1707

Vane is 38 or 39 in early 1719 El. is 28 in early 1719

.

I am adding this here as I forgot to post it when I put up the chapter. Henry Jennings was Vane's real mentor, so the show's Blackbeard took on some of his mantle (Vane and Teach aka Blackbeard knew and respected each other but as far as I can tell they never sailed together). And he is one of a small number of pirates who lived to a happy old age after renouncing piracy in 1717.


	10. Reckoning

.

xxx

.

"Charles, I shan't trust you aboard my ship, unless I carry you as a prisoner, for before I know it I'll have you conspiring with my men to knock me on the head, and run away with my ship pirating."

From her hiding place in the underbrush, Eleanor scowls as she hears the man's verdict. So much for Captain Holford being an old buccaneer acquaintance of Vane's; so much for Vane's initial good spirits as he watched the _Royal Mary_ put in at their island to replenish her fresh water store en route from Jamaica down to the Bay of Honduras; so much, in fact, for the hope of getting off this island. Their current place of residence could be much worse, true; the fact that it has fresh water springs inland, thus saving them from dying of thirst, is alone enough to recommend it; but after two weeks surviving by catching fish and crabs, getting handouts from fishermen who occasionally visit the island, and sleeping on a heap of palm fronds just off the beach, she is definitely ready to go somewhere that has properly cooked food and real beds.

Watching Holford talking to Vane on the beach, she can sense the mutual mistrust, and is by now convinced that on Vane's side, the mistrust is well justified. In her years of working as a fence and dealing with all manner of shady characters, Eleanor has learned to be a quick and pretty accurate judge of people, albeit aside from her stupendous error of judgement in Vane's case; and Holford strikes her instantly as a smarmy, cautious, calculating bastard, at once ruthless and hypocritical – rather like her late father, in fact. She is glad she insisted on staying concealed, having flatly refused Vane's suggestion that he try to secure passage for her alone should his conversation with Holford prove difficult – as it duly did – telling him that if he was not coming with her, she was not going. If only Deal could have a way of knowing where his senior partner has ended up, she muses; seeing how Vane made him captain of the other sloop, and knowing his loyalty, Eleanor is sure he would be here in no time… assuming he did not drown in the hurricane, that is.

"Peter, I know you wouldn't put much trust in an oath upon my honour, but I assure you that I have no such intention…" Vane says presently, not yet having abandoned all hope of persuading the other man. "All I want is to get off this island," Vane finishes.

"You might easily find a way to get off, if you had a mind to do it," Holford counters evasively. "I am going down the bay," he continues, "and shall return here in about a month, and if I find you upon the island when I come back, I'll carry you to Jamaica…"

Well, maybe he will relent and give them passage, after all…

"…and there hang you."

If she had not resolved to stay concealed, she would have walked right up to them and punched this prick in that smug, mocking face of his.

"Which way can I get away?" Vane shrugs.

"Are there not fishermen's boats that come upon the beach? Can't you take one of them?" Holford replies.

"What," Vane shoots back with a bitter laugh, "you'd have me steal a boat then?" Considering how the fishermen have helped them stay alive by sharing some of their catch and bringing them tinder and flints so they could light a fire to cook, she can see where his resistance to the idea comes from.

"Do you make it a matter of conscience," replies Holford, continuing his mockery, "to steal a boat, when you have been a common robber and pirate, stealing ships and cargoes, and plundering all mankind that fell in your way!" Apparently he forgets in his pretence at righteous indignation that a few years ago he himself was a common robber and pirate, albeit not as successful as Vane. "Stay here and be damned if you are so squeamish!" Holford finishes triumphantly and marches off, back to the rowboat that is waiting to take him to the _Royal Mary_.

xxx

As the imposing ship fades away toward the horizon, she watches Vane stagger off along the beach away from her, the misery obvious in his hunched shoulders; and doubly hates Holford for being the reason, so long as the _Royal Mary_ is still in sight, that she cannot leave her concealment for fear of Holford being tempted to return so as to carry her off alone. Not that she could help much with what is the other, perhaps even the greater cause for Vane's distress: earlier, at the start of this ill-fated exchange, Holford gave him the news that Blackbeard had been killed not far from his base at Ocracoke island back at the end of November, after a long chase and a tense two-day battle with a Navy ship. And while Eleanor cannot think of a good thing to say to comfort him, having been implicated in his rift with his mentor a few years back, and while she knows that saying that _at least he died fighting_ is best avoided as it can give Vane really bad ideas, she just wants to be there next to him in case he needs her.

xxx

As it turns out, Blackbeard's death is not the only loss suffered by the pirate brotherhood in recent weeks – nor even the most painful as far as Vane is concerned.

When she finds him at sundown, smoking as he looks out upon the darkening sea on deck of the _Princess_ , whose captain visited their island for the same reason as Holford but on his way to Jamaica via Grand Cayman and believed their story of being passengers from a recently wrecked trader enough to give them passage, she instantly knows that something is wrong when he looks away without greeting her. Not that it stops her from walking over to stand next to him; still, she knows better than to push for an answer until he tells her what the matter is.

"He's dead," he says after a while, in a flat, colourless tone, without turning to her.

"Blackbeard?" she ventures.

He shakes his head in silence.

"Jack," he finally says, and apparently his voice gives out. "They told me he was hanged on Jamaica a week ago," he adds eventually.

"And Anne?" she asks, almost hoping to hear that the other woman has shared her partner's fate.

He shakes his head again. "She was in prison, but she was never brought before the court. Her father is a prominent lawyer in the Colonies," he continues. "Wouldn't be surprised if he pulled strings to get her out. And she pleaded that she was with child."

"Well, at least Jack will have left an heir…" Eleanor ventures; it is meant to lighten the mood, but she can tell that it is not helping much.

"I wouldn't even bet on it being his," Vane argues darkly. "You know what that hag told him before he was executed?"

Eleanor is not even sure she wants to know; but seeing Vane's misery, the least she can do is share it.

"She was allowed to visit him, and so she went and told him that _she was sorry to see him there, but if he had fought like a man in their last engagement he need not have been hanged like a dog_ ", he spits out.

Eleanor herself is a thousand times guiltier as far as pre-execution prison visits go; but at least she did not claim to be Vane's loving partner at that time, even if, for all intents and purposes, she has become one now.

"Well, that settles the question of which of us is the _stupid cunt_ ," she says wryly, and even though Vane's mood is still unrelentingly black, she sees him smirk for an instant.

They stay there in silence, leaning side-by-side against the hull railing in the dusk; she tries to think of something to say that could make him less wretched. Well, if there is one thing she has seen instantly transforming his mood, no matter how downbeat he may be, it is anger… though in that case, the transformation is not always for the better. But then, she would only be reminding him of what really happened; and Jack is past caring as to what Vane may think of him.

"He took your ship, Charles. He took your crew. They called you a coward for making a sensible decision. I am not sure if Jack deserves such grief from you. Aren't you angry with him at all?"

"For what?" he argues in a dull voice, without turning to her. "For wanting to please his woman? I wanted to keep you safe and he wanted to keep Anne happy; it wasn't really that different, it's just that the crew happened to support his choice more than mine." She remembers his _tactical decision_ remark from back then; she always knew Charles Vane was no good as a liar.

"He was family," Vane continues. "I loved him as a brother through thick and thin, and you know how it is with family and loved ones, no matter how they may wrong you and how you may hate them at times, it breaks your heart when they're gone… "

Well, _her_ family may not be a good example in this case; but yes, she gets the idea.

"I always thought I'd be the first to go. And now first Teach, then him..." He trails off, and all she can do is take his free hand in both of hers and squeeze it. She cannot even find the voice to tell him how much she disapproves of his _the first to go_ idea, as he goes on. "At this rate, in a couple of years there will be no one left. Flint will probably survive, the sneaky bastard, but I don't know how much I want to team up with him; I have a sense that if I do _that_ , he'll fuck me over sooner rather than later. There's Bartholomew Roberts, of course, but he is an arrogant prick… I guess I'll just have to stick it out on my own."

"Charles, why do you have to keep doing this?" she asks him; even though she knows it to be a near-hopeless argument, she cannot help trying so long as there is the faintest glimmer of a chance. "You've just said it yourself, they're bribing off the leaders and killing whoever refuses to be bribed. And those who don't feel like getting killed are getting out of here, like Ned England. Why are you so keen on fighting a losing battle?"

"Looking at the battles I gave at sea, I haven't lost many."

"I know. But this is different. It's much bigger than that, it's not a battle, really. I called it wrong; it's a fucking war. And it looks like it will be over soon." Her voice picks up involuntarily, and she strains to keep it down to avoid arousing suspicion. "What does it matter if it's over in a year, or in two, or in three? It's as good as finished, Charles, you can hate me for saying this but this is much bigger than the two of us; than all of us. England has declared war against piracy for real this time, its allies never tolerated it to start with, and Spain has just used it as a pretext to resume hostilities," she presses on; the new war against Spain is among the news they heard since they came aboard. "You are right, Charles; you've always been a winner. You've had one hell of a successful year, even if I can't say I'm altogether happy with it." She sees him roll his eyes, but he lets her continue. "You've spent the past few years doing whatever you wanted to do on these seas. What point is there in just doing more of the same for another year or two if it gets you killed, as opposed to walking away undefeated?"

"The point is," he answers, and she cannot tell if he is serious or being ironic, "that hopefully I can die a good death like Blackbeard did, and be remembered for it."

She squeezes his hand between her palms so tightly that he winces. "Why the fuck are you so eager to get killed? Three weeks ago when we nearly drowned, you said you weren't in a hurry to die anymore; what's changed since then?" She is suddenly terrified that he will present her with a reason.

"Nothing," he says, and that, at least, is a relief. "I'm not saying that I'll go looking for ways to die, but if it happens, I'd rather die fighting."

"Well, you aren't very likely to get that chance, you know," she says pointedly. "Blackbeard was lucky, yes, but look at Jack, look at Stede Bonnet; look at the ones they hanged in Nassau back in December." News travels slowly in the Caribbean, but it did trickle down eventually. "You're more likely to be facing a wretched execution like you did in Nassau than a heroic death in a blaze of glory."

He appears to consider it; so far, so good; but then he shakes his head in resignation.

"I'm too well known, you know;" he scowls as he says it. "Even if I walk away, so long as I'm alive I'll never have a day's peace, I'll just be waiting for someone to recognise me and turn me in."

"…or _known_ to be alive…" she corrects him.

He turns to her then and holds her gaze, his eyes bright in the dim light, a wicked smile spreading on his thin lips.

"So all we need to do is find a way for you to die, you know, without dying."

He nods and chuckles, but says nothing. "You know, Eleanor," he starts eventually, as if thinking out loud, "I never had another life since I've been free. And I never planned to live long. What could I possibly do?"

"I don't know," she answers truthfully, "I mean there are lots of things you could do in principle, the question is, which ones you would be interested in doing. Why don't we try and find out? I mean there are lots of people out there who've never been pirates in their life, and somehow they've managed not to die of boredom."

He casts a quick sideways glance at her.

"What?" she prompts when no other reaction follows.

"The question, Eleanor," he says, still pensive, "is whether _you_ would die of boredom after few months if we try to live like that."

She ignores his scepticism in the thrill of the realisation that he is implicitly including her in this version of a future. "I can answer that. In the past year I've been in prison, in at least a dozen naval battles, in a fucking hurricane, marooned, nearly raped by a rabid gang, and have nearly committed the worst mistake of my life." She can see how his face softens at that last mention. "I think I've had enough excitement to last me till old age, thank you very much. Besides," she continues, nestling closer to him in an attempt to get him to look away from the darkening sea and face her, "I somehow doubt you and I could get too bored in each other's company wherever we may end up."

She is rewarded with a grin; but she is still worried that she will never be able to steer this discussion away from general statements of intent and into a more practical vein. Oh well, if the greatest obstacle is a perceived lack of commitment on her part, she may be able to do something about that. In for a penny, in for a pound, as they say.

"I've got money stashed away, you know," she goes on conspiratorially. "About thirty or forty thousand pounds' worth saved in French bills of exchange, kept in a bank in Louisiana. We could use it to get ourselves settled somewhere."

" _About_ thirty or forty?" He does not so much sound surprised at the amount, even though it is considerable, as at her apparent carelessness in remembering it so imprecisely.

"It's been a while since I last checked," she admits. "And it's been gathering interest in the meantime."

He raises his eyebrows at her, and she could bet that the familiar smug expression is back, although she could not possibly imagine why the hell he should be sporting it.

"Well, what _I'_ ve got isn't accruing any interest seeing how it's about four feet underground on a little-known island," he says in a tone so nonchalant as to be deliberate, "but I'd say I've got about _fifty or sixty_ thousand pounds' worth of pearls and emeralds put away in a sweet little chest, should I ever need them."

She can see the reason for his smugness all right. "And you just left it buried there?"

He shrugs. "Haven't had any reason to want it so long as I meant to spend my life fighting at sea… except once when I offered you to get away from it all and it seemed as if you might go for it."

She is suddenly aware that her throat is burning. The worst thing is, she cannot even remember the exact occasion he must be referring to.

"Well, I want it now," she manages at last. "Not the treasure," she adds quickly, "but the getaway part."

He slips his hand from between hers, takes hold of her fingers and brings them to his lips.

"In that case," he mutters against her fingertips, "you have it."

xxx

It is strange how life catches up with you, she thinks distantly as she stands on the stern gallery of the _Princess_ , looking out at sea with unseeing eyes as she listens to conversation inside the roundhouse cabin, concealed, as she once was on board Vane's brigantine, by the cabin door. Dinner is supposed to start in a matter of minutes; she and Vane have a curious status on board, and while he pays for their passage by helping rearrange stowage below deck after much of the cargo was displaced, some of it damaged, by the same storm that wrecked their sloop, they have nonetheless been afforded a separate cabin in recognition of their claimed status as a married couple, and are invited to dine with the captain and officers, in recognition, she suspects, of her good looks.

Soon they will all be assembled in the roundhouse, and her life as she has known it in the past four months will come to an end. But for now, there are just two men talking inside.

"Do you know whom you have got aboard there, working in the hold?" the voice asks.

"Why," their captain answers, "I've picked up a man at Swan island, who was cast away in a trading sloop, and he seems to be a brisk hand."

"I am telling you," the first voice sounds impatient in its insistence, "it is Vane the notorious pirate."

There is a silence.

"If it be him," the captain replies finally, "I won't keep him."

The interlocutor pipes up at once, eager to the point of excitement. "Why then, I'll take him aboard, and surrender him at Jamaica."

She knows perfectly, even without seeing, that the voice belongs to Captain Holford.

Another minute goes by.

"Gentlemen.-" she hears Vane's greeting as he comes in freeze on his lips as he, presumably, sees who he is saluting.

It is now or never.

She forces herself to turn around, open the door, and take a step in, then another, then another.

"Captain Holford!" she exclaims cheerily; if the other man is surprised at the address, he seems reluctant to disclaim acquaintance seeing how he is being addressed by a pretty young lady. "You may not remember me, but I am so, so very happy to see you; you cannot imagine my relief at seeing a hope of deliverance."

She feels as if she is watching herself from a distance, floating in mid-air; but she does her best to speak steadily. "I am Eleanor Guthrie, lately of the governing council on New Providence, appointed by Governor Rogers, and I apologise to Captain Markham," she adds with a nod at the other man, "for the unwilling deception, seeing how I was compelled into it under duress. This man," she continues, pointing at Vane, "has carried me off Nassau by force, and I have been his hostage and prisoner ever since, and when we came on board the _Princess_ he told me under penalty of death to keep my and his identity secret. I saw you dock at Swan island but I could not even signal to you, seeing how I was bound and gagged," she continues with an involuntary grimace, "and you can imagine my relief now at hearing how you have recognised this, this… animal, and intend to bring him to justice. I have a profound personal motive to want it, Captain Holford. Two years ago he brutally murdered my father in Nassau; and I would beg you, seeing how you are taking this monster to face justice in Jamaica, to let me come along so I could testify at the trial."

If anything could have increased Holford's already considerable pleasure at his visit to aboard the _Princess_ , which started inauspiciously as a mere courtesy call upon his acquaintance Markham as both ships sailed into the harbour at Grand Cayman shortly after sunset, her interjection has undoubtedly provided it. Hurriedly and awkwardly, he makes his excuses to Captain Markham for not staying for dinner as intended, urged by the need to secure Vane in the hold of the _Royal Mary_ ; and soon he leads their small party, accompanied by two of his crewmen carrying arms, into the rowboat that is to take them to his ship.

And all the while Eleanor does all she can not to look at Vane who is staring at her in stunned realisation.

.

xxx

.

NOTES

The show would have us believe, in a touching portrayal, that Blackbeard was a father figure to Vane; touching but, unfortunately, implausible, as Blackbeard and Vane were the same age – surrogate brother, perhaps, but not father.

Anne's parting line to Jack and the circumstances it was delivered in is lifted near-verbatim from Johnson; hence my belief of the real Anne Bonny's bitchiness. Also true: her influential lawyer father, who probably intervened, and her disappearance from prison.

The pound values I quote are in line with the scale of magnitude implied on the show, but in truth they are too high. I understand the writers' dilemma in reconciling inflation over time with modern reality, i.e. in dealing with the fact that small nominal amounts back then would be worth a lot today, and talking about £100 as if it were a big fortune would sound vaguely ridiculous; so I see why they chose a middle ground between real historical amounts and modern inflated ones, and try to follow in their footsteps. I will comment on a practical aspect of this after the next chapter.

I am not sure if the real Captain Holford was quite the bastard I make him out to be; even though I quote him almost verbatim from Johnson's book, his words to Vane could be seen as fair warning rather than mockery. I'll let you judge for yourselves – here is Johnson's description of Vane's capture, again continuing directly from the bit I quoted at the end of ch 9:

"While Vane was thus upon this island, a ship put in there from Jamaica for water, the captain of which, one Holford, an old buccaneer, happened to be Vane's acquaintance. He thought this a good opportunity to get off, and accordingly applied to his old friend: but Holford absolutely refused him, saying to him, "Charles, I shan't trust you aboard my ship, unless I carry you as a prisoner, for I shall have you caballing with my men, knock me on the head, and run away with my ship pirating." Vane made all the protestations of honour in the world to him; but, it seems, Captain Holford was too intimately acquainted with him, to repose any confidence at all in his words or oaths. He told him, "He might easily find a way to get off, if he had a mind to it: - I am going down the bay," said he, "and shall return hither in about a month, and if I find you upon the island when I come back, I'll carry you to Jamaica, and there hang you." "Which way can I get away?" answered Vane. "Are there not fishermen's dories upon the beach?" Can't you take one of them?" replied Holford. "What!" said Vane, "would you have me steal a dory then?" "Do you make it a matter of conscience," replied Holford, "to steal a dory, when you have been a common robber and pirate, stealing ships and cargoes, and plundering all mankind that fell in your way! Stay here and be damned if you are so squeamish!" and so left him.

After Captain Holford's departure, another ship put into the same island, in her way home, for water; none of the company knowing Vane, he easily passed for another man, and so was shipped for the voyage. One would be apt to think that Vane was now pretty safe, and likely to escape the fate which his crimes had merited; but here a cross accident happened that ruined all. Holford returning from the bay, was met by this ship, and the captains being very well acquainted with each other, Holford was invited to dine aboard, which he did. As he passed along to the cabin, he chanced to cast his eye down into the hold, and there saw Charles Vane at work: he immediately spoke to the captain, saying, "Do you know whom you have got aboard there?" "Why, said he, "I have shipped a man at such an island, who was cast away in a trading sloop, and he seems to be a brisk hand." "I tell you," replied Captain Holford, "it is Vane the notorious pirate." "If it be him," replied the other, "I won't keep him." "Why then," said Holford, "I'll send and take him aboard, and surrender him at Jamaica. " This being agreed upon, Captain Holford, as soon as he returned to his ship. Sent his boat with his mate, armed, who coming to Vane, showed him a pistol, and told him he was his prisoner. No man daring to make opposition, he was brought aboard and put into irons; and when Captain Holford arrived at Jamaica, he delivered up his old acquaintance into the hands of justice."

If you compare my version of Vane's capture with Captain Johnson's, you may guess that I was, at one point in my life, a big _Star Wars_ fan; more specifically, an _Empire Strikes Back_ fan, as I practically lifted the dinner scene from there, although I have Eleanor play Lando rather than Leia to Vane's Han. Had Vane been on his own, I might have stuck with Johnson's account; but seeing how Eleanor is tagging along in our version, I thought it could be made more entertaining.

…and now that I finally have a satisfyingly nasty cliffhanger to leave things at, I sneak away for a couple of days to type up the remaining couple of chapters :P


	11. Redress

I am somewhat sad to be nearing the end of my tale, but that is the inevitable consequence of having the entire plot planned from the start. I'd hate to give too much away, but for anyone wondering as to how closely I intend to follow Charles Vane's historical fate, you can take comfort in the fact that I am too much of a sucker for happy endings for characters I love.

.

xxx

.

"So pray tell me, Captain, how is it that you are so incredibly successful at catching these vile criminals?"

They are sitting in Holford's cabin; by now it must be past midnight, and the officers have long retired after the dinner; Eleanor was not surprised when Holford found a pretext to continue his conversation with her, especially since she herself was stalling for time, rather hoping for it. The dishes have been cleared off the table, leaving only a lantern off to one side, and the only refreshment – if it is indeed the correct term – consisting of a dark green flask that started the past hour full of rum and is now on its last legs, having followed close on the heels of another one.

"Please… call me Peter," he entreats her with an ingratiating smile.

Smarmy or not, but her well-being on board this ship rests on his regard for her; so she obliges.

"Very well, _Peter_ , do tell me how you manage it," she insists, leaning on the table with both elbows so as to give him a better look at her cleavage.

"It's not that complicated, my dear," he replies, albeit his tone gives the distinct impression of bragging. "I told you how I receive rewards for the pirates and criminals I happen to capture…"

"Yes, you did, Peter." Earlier that evening, he explained to her how, after he retired from piracy, his initial unsuccessful attempts to make it as captain of a merchantman essentially gave way to bounty hunting.

"And so I use the proceeds from my earlier successful endeavours to, shall we say, encourage various local busybodies at the ports I visit to share information with me. At times it leads me on dead end chases, but all things considered, on average it pays off quite well in the end."

She slowly shakes her head in a sign of appreciation. "That's quite cunning, I must say, Peter. And quite brilliant. Might I please ask you to get some more rum?" she continues, shaking the last few drops out of the flask into her mug.

"Of course, of course, my dear." He gets up and walks over to a cupboard, and presently, having produced another flask, sets it on the table between them. "Let us drink to your happy and fortuitous deliverance!"

"Indeed!" she offers him the mug. "I can hardly express my relief when I heard you speaking to Captain Markham, seeing how I had been living in mortal fear for days – nay, months! – before that, locked away on a loathsome pirate ship. I almost hoped that my trials would be over when the storm struck, and I prayed that I would drown… imagine my dejection, Peter, when the ship was destroyed and of all the people who could have drowned, Vane was the only one who survived besides me!"

"Well, my dear girl," Holford counters, taking a hearty gulp from his mug, "he will not survive for long."

"I am counting the days, nay, the hours, Captain… Peter. I confess I am still dreading that he will break free and come after me, seeing how he hates me since I tried to get him hanged in Nassau, and now that he can no longer use me as a hostage. I am terrified of going to bed…"

"There's no great hurry, my dear; and you will rest more easily after we're done with this," he lifts the flask and gives them refills, though in her case, it is more of a top-up seeing how her mug is still mostly full. "Besides, I assure you that you are in no danger whatsoever from Captain Vane – well, the _former_ Captain Vane, should I say – seeing how he is locked up in irons deep at the bottom of the cargo hold. Not only would he have to unlock his shackles in pitch darkness, he would then have to find and open the hatch leading out of the cargo hold, still in the dark, and then find his way through the gun deck past a score of sleeping crewmen without bumping into them. And then he'd have to know which cabin you're in."

"That could be easy, Captain, seeing how there are only two passenger cabins here besides yours."

"That is why I am saying you are safer here, seeing how I have this." He points to the pistol tucked into his belt. "And seeing how I'm the only person who has these," he adds, pulling a bunch of keys out of his coat pocket and dangling them in his raised hand, "Still, I'd say he's unlikely to make it up to here at all."

She smiles at him before taking a sip from her mug. "I feel safer already. I am so indebted to you, Peter, for apprehending this monster of a man. Here's to our timely meeting, and to the successful conclusion of this voyage in Jamaica, may Captain Vane finally meet his fate at the gallows... So how many of these criminals have you caught already?"

Holford ponders her question. "A couple of dozen by now," he ventures. "Though no one quite as lucrative, I daresay, as Charles Vane. I confess I had been convinced that he would never make it to these parts, seeing how he mostly frequented New Providence and the Carolina coast, and I knew him to be far too dangerous to be easily captured, so I did not pay proper attention to the proclamation Governor Rogers issued-"

"I persuaded him to issue it," she points out, "seeing how this despicable animal murdered my father."

"Quite right, my dear." Holford nods as he holds up his mug for another helping. "And what an excellent idea it was, setting the reward at ten thousand pounds." He adds, savouring the words. "And then His Excellency Governor Lawes made it even better, by increasing it to fifteen after Vane and his robbers made away with the _Pearl of Jamaica_. And just to imagine how close I was to missing all that, seeing how I had not kept abreast of the rewards for his capture when I first ran into him on Swan island…"

"And I could not speak to you, seeing how I was tied up there and kept away from the beach, and did not even know of the _Royal Mary_ calling there."

"Ah, you poor darling. Well, it is a damned good thing, if you forgive my language, that as soon as I reached the English settlement in Belize I learned of Governor Lawes' latest proclamation, and I hurried back as fast as I could… and you can imagine my extreme disappointment when I reached Swan Island to find that Vane was gone." Holford empties his mug, grimacing at the memory.

"How fortunate then, Peter, that you happened to call in here at Georgetown, and on the very same night as the _Princess_ came in."

"Quite so, my dear, quite so. Although to be precise, it was no accident. I was planning to call in here, albeit for a less important motive…"

"Really?" She leans closer to him across the table.

"Oh yes, although seeing how I have captured a much greater prize in the person of Captain Vane, I might as well weigh anchor at dawn so I could be in Kingston sooner... You see, I was given a hint that a bunch of pirates recently arrived in Grand Cayman, having had their craft dashed by the recent storm, and are kicking their heels around the port looking for passage. I was quite keen on seeing if any of them would fetch a reward above the standard fare, which would not give me much of a margin, but I am quite certain based on experience that the reward in their case is likely to be modest. Now Vane alone could set me up for a good couple of years of comfortable living; and if I use the money to buy another ship…"

"But why walk away from a reward if it is here waiting to be claimed?" she argues. "Besides, it would be downright irresponsible, criminally so I daresay," she adds sternly, "to have a chance to capture and hang a pirate and not do so. I am still furious over how Vane got away before I could hang him."

"Well, my dear, you will have your second chance now." Holford seems to have used up all his recent enthusiasm on his previous long-winded explanation; now he sounds tired, his tongue slurring the words.

"And I am very pleased with it, even though it will be Mr Lawes and not Mr Rogers hanging him. But please promise me, Peter, that you will get the other bandits too."

"Well…" he begins, rather unsteadily, then takes another gulp. "Seeing how… important this is to you, my dear… I am happy to oblige."

"You are a true gentleman."

He grins and raises his mug in a salute, then empties it.

"And I do hope Mr Lawes is just as uncompromising as you are."

"Oh, Mr Lawes is completely uncompro-" He falters, hiccups, and tries again. "Uncom… promising."

"I am so, so very happy to hear this." She rests her chin on her hands on the tabletop. "And so very grateful to you, Peter, for giving me a chance to put right my earlier blunder."

"You're verrry… welcome, my dear." He is going downhill fast; presently he props up an elbow on the table and rests his head on top of his open palm. "And I assu-"

This proves too much for him; he slumps, his cheek all but hitting the tabletop. He stays there with eyes closed, and in about a minute his heavy breathing gives way to regular snoring.

"You really, really are most obliging," she says, very softly; it elicits no reaction.

She gets up from the table, walks over to his side, and gently puts an arm around his shoulders; he does not move even a fraction of an inch.

Then, squatting down by his chair, she slips her fingers, as carefully as she can, into his coat pocket, and feeling the cool iron, does her best to grab as many keys in her hand as her awkward position will allow. Then she slowly lifts the entire bunch out of the pocket, picks up the lantern from the table, and backs out of the cabin.

xxx

"Charles?"

Her whisper echoes in the cavernous cargo hold, submerged in virtual darkness, the turned-down wick of her lantern doing next to nothing to illuminate it seeing how she still has the lantern wrapped in a pillowcase to avoid letting the light alert any crewmen who might be awake to her nighttime foray.

She is answered by silence, except for the light trickle of a couple of inches of bilge water swirling about the bottom of the hull; the air is heavy with the stale water smell mixed with tar. For a few moments she feels the rising panic as she wonders if she has come to the right place; if Holford lied to her about Vane's whereabouts; if he is there but beaten unconscious; or dead.

"Charles, where are you?" she calls out again, slightly louder. She has done her best to drag the heavy cover over the hatch behind her when she descended into the hold, as quietly as she could, but she could not close it fully for fear of complicating her – _their_ , hopefully – escape afterwards.

Hearing no answer, she ventures forward on unsteady legs, picking her way among rows of water casks. Maybe he is there and relatively unharmed, just asleep.

"Charles?" she tries again.

"Why are you here?"

The voice that answers her is quiet but so low as to barely qualify as human; it is as if the ship itself is questioning her. Still, her shoulders sag in relief.

"Are you alone?"

There is a pause before he answers. "Yes. Why the fuck are you here? What are you doing?"

She turns up the wick and finally sees him sitting chained to the timbers, about fifteen feet ahead, staring into the darkness without turning to her.

"What do you think I'm doing?" She cannot raise her voice, even though she wants to; still, as whispers go, hers is one hell of a furious whisper.

"You tell me," he says, still in that bone-chilling tone.

"Getting you out of here, you fool." She picks her way over to where he is sitting, sets the lantern down on top of a cask, and pulls the keys out of a hidden pocket in the skirts of her dress, unwrapping them from a handkerchief she used to keep them from jangling. "Give me your hands."

He does not budge. "Why?"

"What do you mean _why_?... Come on, give me your wrists."

He extends his hands to her almost reluctantly; and it occurs to her that the greatest challenge she may be facing in this undertaking might not be fooling Holford, or drinking him under the table, or lifting the keys, or sneaking down past the crew quarters; the greatest challenge may well be persuading Charles Vane to escape.

Well, at least he does peel the irons off him when she unlocks the shackles, and does so quietly enough; and does not immediately launch himself to strangle her. But when he is done he still shows no sign of wanting to get out; they are just standing there, the lantern propped up on the cask throwing odd, angular shadows on his face.

"What are you doing, Eleanor?" he repeats. At least he is looking at her now, but it is little consolation; his eyes are as cold and clear as they were that fateful night when she snuck Abigail Ashe out of the fort.

She fights the desire to take a step back. "You- you didn't really believe that shit I was saying earlier today?"

He is still looking at her.

"I don't know," he says eventually in the same dead growl. "Four months ago you meant it."

It takes all her willpower not to scream out loud.

"Fuck you, Charles, are you getting out or not?" Her voice gives out halfway through the sentence; she is so hurt that she stumbles back and ends up sitting on top of another cask. The worst, the absolutely most painful part of it is that he is right; but it also means that he is ready to dismiss everything that happened since then as mere duplicity, and _that_ is bordering on unfair.

She reaches down into the same pocket where she had concealed the keys for the other item she has kept there ever since he gave it to her, and, pulling the slender dagger out of its sheath, she gets up, takes a step back toward him, and holds it out to him, hilt forward.

"I swore to you I would never betray you again. If you don't believe me, if you think this is more treachery on my part, then take it and do what you think is right."

He stands still, arms crossed; but his eyes are suddenly brighter.

"Think about it," she blurts out; and there is no stopping her now that it looks as if she has a chance. "How else could I make sure Holford would let me go on his ship if not by declaring that I wanted to testify at your trial? Both he and Markham are bound from Grand Cayman for Jamaica, so I couldn't claim to prefer Holford's destination. I had no way of warning you, seeing how I didn't recognise the _Royal Mary_ at anchor, I'd only seen her once from half a mile away, and it was almost dark when we sailed into the harbour here; and by the time Holford came aboard for dinner I was out on the stern gallery and only knew it was him when I heard him talking to Markham telling him he'd seen you and intended to take you prisoner. There was no way I could get off that gallery without walking past them. What the fuck would you have me do, Charles, let Holford take you and think I'd never see you again?"

There is another second or two of unbearable silence; then his shoulders sag.

"Holy fucking hell," he mutters, very quietly; then he raises both hands and runs them up his cheeks and into his hair, as if peeling off a mask; and finally he shakes his head with a silent laugh, eyes closed. When he opens them again she could bet he almost looks embarrassed.

She pockets the dagger again, strides over to him and puts her arms around him; and is infinitely thrilled and relieved when he does the same; and through it all, through the pain of knowing that for several hours he must have believed her monstrous betrayal to be true, she is nonetheless pleased to have been able to surprise the hell out of him.

Eventually he lets go of her just enough to put a few inches' distance between their faces; and when he looks at her now, his eyes are soft and tender.

"It's a shame you never considered a career in piracy, Eleanor. Seeing how you can outwit all the men around you, you would have kicked Bart Roberts clean out of these seas."

xxx

It must be three o'clock or thereabouts when they are saying goodbyes on the quarter gallery; and at this rate he still has an hour or so of the incoming tide to carry him to shore holding on to his makeshift conveyance, a water cask he emptied in the hold, secured to one end of a cable in a sort of harness, and lowered carefully overboard until it reached the water surface, the other end of the cable now tied to the quarter gallery banisters. It would have been faster to have just tossed it overboard, but even aside from the noise that could have alerted the crewmen on the watch, now dozing outside the forecastle, he needed to be sure he could find and grab the cask in near-total darkness; and he needed the cable to get down to the water.

With the _Royal Mary_ anchored just over a quarter mile out to sea from Georgetown harbour, an hour should give him plenty of time to safely reach the island… if they can only stop kissing and peel themselves away from each other, which neither of them is in a hurry to do.

"Eleanor, come with me," he entreats her for the tenth time; ever since she explained her plan to him back in the hold, he has been resisting it.

She tips up her chin for another kiss. "You know it will makes things worse, Charles," she mutters presently. "You said it yourself, _you will know no peace so long you are alive_. With both of us and with his keys gone, he is bound to see through my deception and they'll be looking for us. Besides," she reminds him, "you need me up here to cut the cable when you've climbed down."

His only response is to wrap his arms even tighter around her.

"Go on," she says after a while, taking a reluctant half step away from him. "You don't want to miss the tide."

But when he already has his hands on the banisters, ready to climb over and descend to the waves below, she starts toward him.

"I love you, Charles," she whispers, peering straight at him despite the darkness, trying to commit his features to memory. "If we never see each other again, I want you to know…"

He takes his hands off the banisters to hold her close once more.

"Silly girl," he mutters against her cheek. A couple of years ago she would have punched him for saying it, now she wraps her arms tighter around him seeing it for the term of endearment it is meant to be. "Of course I know."

He stands away from her. "Stay safe," is his final admonition. "I'll see you when I'm dead."

And then he is gone; less than a minute later she feels the light tug on the cable, pulls out the dagger and cuts it loose, throwing the short end into the sea. His troubles, she hopes, will soon be over; hers, she knows, are just beginning.

.

 _to be concluded_

.

I mentioned in my note to the previous chapter that monetary values on the show are a sort of compromise between real historical and modern ones. To make the point specifically with regards to bounties declared for the capture of pirates (if you recall, Charles Vane's life carried a £10,000 reward in S3), I quote here an excerpt from the proclamation issued by Alexander Spotswood, Governor of Virginia, in November 1718 just before Blackbeard's death in battle and the capture of his crew. He promised to pay:

"For Edward Teach, commonly called Captain Teach, or Blackbeard, one hundred pounds; for every other commander of a pirate ship, sloop, or vessel, forty pounds; for every lieutenant, master, or quartermaster boatrswain, or carpenter, twenty pounds; for every other inferior officer, fifteen pounds; and for every private man taken on board such ship, sloop, or vessel, ten pounds"

Other local authorities seemed slightly more generous; thus, an earlier 1717 proclamation somewhere on the British Caribbean islands promised £100 for a pirate captain, £40 for an officer, £30 for an "inferior officer", £20 for a seaman; and nine years later in 1727, there was even mention of a £500 reward for another notorious pirate's capture.

…But saying that Charles Vane's life is worth £100 just does not sound right :P


	12. Сharles Vane's execution

.

xxx

.

Standing on an open platform at the end of the narrow spit jutting out into Kingston Harbour, the appropriately named Gallows Point being almost all that remains of the once bustling town of Port Royal before it was submerged by a devastating earthquake twenty-seven years ago, never to recover, Eleanor is too well aware of having seen all this before… and wishes she would not have to watch it again.

Her eyes are fixed on the man standing under the gallows, tall, lean, broad-shouldered, long hair swept by the breeze; seemingly unconcerned. Her hands are squeezed into tight fists; she does her best to keep her face impassive, aware that her hosts, the elderly Governor Lawes and his young wife, may be watching her.

The sentence is read, the noose affixed; the accused raises his hand in a final salute, as if saying farewell to someone in the crowd; and then the hatch in the scaffold opens up under him, and after a split-second drop, his body goes limp almost instantly.

At least it was quick.

She still cannot turn away, though her vision is now blurred by the tears brimming in her eyes. She may not have had as direct a hand in this execution as she did in the one in Nassau five months ago, but still, at least in part this has been her doing.

"Are you all right, my dear?" Mrs Lawes pipes up, seeing her distress.

"I'm sorry… I am not used to this sort of spectacle. Your Excellency, dear Mrs Lawes, I beg you to excuse me; I will see you back at your mansion, I really must go."

"Of course, of course; you poor girl," the governor says in a soothing tone. "Tell the officers down at the pier to row you back to Kingston, and if you could wait for us there while the boat comes back after us, we can all ride back to the house. It's just that I need to discuss the minor matter of the location of Captain Vane's gibbet with the port commander."

She does all she can to look composed. "Thank you so much, Your Excellency... there really is no need for you to worry; I'll walk along the old pier, and will get a ride to Spanish Town from there. I don't mind the longer distance, I think I just need a bit of time to calm down."

"Very well, my dear; so long as it helps lift your spirits. When you reach Kingston, go to Mr Rawley's office on the waterfront and tell him to give you a ride. I'll settle the matter with him."

"You really are too kind," she mutters; the governor's concern for her would be heartwarming had she not been so distraught. "Thank you. I'll do as you say, and I'll see you back at the mansion."

With that, she staggers off the platform and walks past the loosening knot of people a few yards away from the gallows, the crowd already starting to disperse. And as she weaves her way around Kingston citizens in the blinding sunshine, the people's attention already distracted from the grisly sight a short distance away onto mundane gossip, her throat burns from inside, so much that she is almost choking; and presently Eleanor Guthrie, the woman who never shows weakness and never, _ever_ cries is stumbling blindly forward, unable to see where she is going amid inconsolable sobbing. So let them see that she was in love with a hanged pirate; at least no one here knows who she is, but even if they did, she would not care the tiniest bit, having been struck by the dreadful realisation.

She will never see Charles Vane again.

It looks like he has given her the most ruthless retaliation for her betrayals. And much as it breaks her heart to admit it, it serves her right for what she did back in Nassau.

She stumbles on the uneven, earthquake-ravaged payment, and is about to fall – not that she cares; at least a kind soul puts a hand on her arm to steady her.

"You know that wasn't me."

She would know that voice anywhere.

She stops dead in her tracks; she cannot stop crying, but she nods her agreement.

"Let's get out of here," he mutters against her ear, and as she still cannot open her eyes, he leads her slowly through the crowd away from Gallows Point, along the ruins of the old waterfront, as she does her best to wipe the tears off her face with her free hand. She wonders at his audacity of showing up at this spot, considering that his imposing appearance, and the resemblance to the condemned man, was unlikely to have gone unnoticed; but presently he leads her away from the pier into a narrow lane between two abandoned warehouses, and once they are out of the line of sight of the gallows crowd, he stops and turns to face her – and she finally opens her eyes enough to take a look at him.

She would know his voice anywhere, true; but in that first instant when she stares wide-eyed at him, the man standing in front of her now seems almost unrecognisable; if she did not know who he was she might have almost taken him for a stranger. _Almost_ ; for the cunning predator is still lurking just beneath the smooth surface, in the bright, sharp eyes; and yet the change is staggering.

For one thing, he looks a good ten years younger; he could almost be her age, or his own age when they just met. Clean-shaven, his face under the three-cornered hat has lost the hatchet shape he sported of late; it is still lean but less wolfish. His hair has been cut so now it does not even reach his shoulders; she knows she will miss the glorious mane, but in all seriousness, if that is what it takes to keep him alive and safe, it is a very small price to pay. And the civilian clothes he is wearing hang loosely about his lean frame down from the broad shoulders, giving him the appearance of greater bulk than she knows to be the case.

But it is definitely, unmistakably, delightfully him. Alive. Here.

The next moment they are kissing like the world is ending, trembling hands cupping each other's faces; and seconds later they are practically racing together further away from the pier, into the shady lane, until they see a gap in the warehouse wall and stumble inside; half the roof is gone but what is left provides just enough shade to shelter in, and there are sacks of sand on the floor, old ballast that no one cared to take, that give them a sort of rough cushion to land on as they claw frantically at each other's clothes. At one point he has to put a hand over her mouth to stop her frustrated groans at being unable to peel off the dress quickly enough, before his fingers are replaced by his hungry lips as his hands deftly do the undressing for her.

She has to admit, being a guest of honour at Charles Vane's execution cannot get any better than this.

xxx

"Charles?"

He does not answer.

She props herself up on one elbow for a closer look. He seems asleep; but presently, not hearing her continue, he lifts an eyebrow and opens one eye a tiny fraction of an inch to squint at her.

"You alive?" she asks the by-now-unnecessary question.

"I don't know, Eleanor…" The familiar low growl now sounds lazy and unusually relaxed, almost playful. "Truth be told, I'm not really sure."

Well, he could say that again; after fucking each other's brains out twice in succession, albeit with him taking time to attend to her second tearful breakdown in between from too much excitement, it certainly felt for a while like they could not draw another breath.

"One of these days it may kill us," he continues, in the same lazy, teasing voice.

"But what a way to go," she says, matching his tone. "Can you imagine the tombstone? _Here lie Charles Vane and Eleanor Guthrie, who fucked each other to death._ "

"You're right," he drawls, and she can see him grinning. "Maybe we should aim for that." He shifts on the pile of sacks to face her. "You were asking..?" He flicks his eyes at her; whether by a trick of the light or for another reason, they seem less steely grey and more light blue now, turquoise even, the colour of a sunlit lagoon.

By now she has all but forgotten what she meant to ask. "How long have you been here?"

"A week. Eight days, to be exact. I had to wait around in Georgetown for a week and a half until a non-English vessel passed through, seeing how there would be less of a chance of me being recognised. Finally saw a Dutchman come in a week and a half ago."

"And in all this time, presumably knowing where I could be found, you never once thought of seeing me?" She cannot bring herself to sound offended, but still does a credible job at seeming surprised.

"The problem lies in the _knowing where you could be found_ part, as you may imagine," he drawls at her. "Seeing how you were Governor Lawes' guest, I could not very well play the suitor lurking beneath your window outside the governor's mansion. With the Redcoat guards he has there, someone might have noted the resemblance between me and a certain condemned captain who was supposed to be in Kingston jail. Here, on the other hand," he continues, gesturing in the direction of the waterfront, "I knew it would be crowded, noisy, with plenty of ruined buildings to hide among; and I knew you would likely be here, seeing how you were one of the two main witnesses." He tucks a wayward strand of hair behind her ear. "Now let me ask you something."

"Go on," she prompts him; whatever the question may be, she is past the point of keeping secrets from him.

"You knew, as I did, that the man who hanged today was Robert Deal; surely you saw him at the trial, and I knew it was him today when I got to the gallows." He takes her hand and strokes her palm with his thumb; a few more seconds of this and she will be unable to answer any question, no matter how simple or innocent. "So if you knew it was Rob and not me, why were you crying afterwards?"

Her answer, she knows, may seem silly; but at least it will be honest.

"I thought I'd never see you again. I was afraid you'd decided to punish me for everything I'd done, and I thought it would be so very easy; all you'd have to do was never turn up and I'd never be able to find you, not knowing where to look and what name to look for; and it was breaking my heart."

Before she has even finished, he pulls her up on top of him and raises a hand to stroke her cheek. "Eleanor, it was never going to happen. Even assuming I were so heartless as to do it to _you_ , I could never be so heartless as to do it to myself." He tips up his chin to kiss her. "So long as I was alive, I'd have found you no matter what."

She lets herself relax against him and leans into the kiss; it started as sweet and gentle but soon becomes unbearably arousing, what with him stroking and teasing her lips with his tongue. As a result, it comes as something of a shock when he pulls away and asks her the next question in a seemingly composed tone.

"Anyway, how did you manage to pull it off?"

"What?" Her mind is decidedly too fuzzy to even understand the question, let alone formulate an answer.

"Not just getting me killed but getting me hanged in a public spectacle. I confess it was something of a surprise to learn of my impending execution the moment I reached Kingston, though I sure was glad I was not its real main attraction."

She is happy to oblige with the answer, of course… or would be, if he would let her collect her wits.

"Charles."

"What?" The innocent look is sweet but really out of place, considering what his hands are at.

"I can either answer you, or have you stroking me like this, but not both at once." She tries to sound stern, rather unsuccessfully.

"Oh, all right." He sets her down onto the sacks next to him. "In that case I would beg you to make it a quick answer."

"I'll see what I can do." She was resolved on a quick answer herself; but now, hearing his entreaty, thinks that more pleasure might be gained in teasing him, seeing how long his patience would last. Either way the result is bound to be enjoyable.

"After you were off I did pretty much what I told you I would do. I crept back into Holford's cabin, found him still sleeping off the rum, slipped the keys back into his pocket and went to my cabin. Once there I did my best to create the greatest mess possible while making the least possible noise to avoid alerting the watchmen too soon, to make it look as if a fight had broken out there; and finally smashed the cabin window, flung it wide open, and pushed the wine cask you'd carried up out of it. I then ran into Holford's cabin in an apparent state of extreme panic and screamed to him that I had just killed Charles Vane, who had broken free and found me in my cabin just as I'd feared, and I stabbed him, you that is, with a carving knife I'd stolen before leaving the _Princess_ for fear of you, and threw your body overboard. By then the crewmen who stood watch had heard the cask hitting the water and ran up to the stern to investigate; they could see nothing in the darkness but it tallied up with my story. Oh, and back in my cabin I'd ripped open the bodice of my new dress to make it look as if you'd tried to assault me."

"Was that really necessary?"

"Come on, Charles, I was supposed to make you into a monster-"

"No, I can see sense in the monster part; I mean was it really necessary to show that pig Holford your breasts?"

She has to laugh at that. "How else could I claim severe emotional distress to make sure I could keep him at bay afterwards? It was either being extremely out of sorts after being assaulted by my father's murderer, or fucking Holford to gain favour. Which would you rather have me do?"

He raises his eyebrows in a gesture of resignation. "I see your point."

"Precisely. Then I made the speech about being afraid of retribution from your former crewmates, or even of prosecution for your murder regardless of your crimes as a pirate, so as to get Holford to keep quiet about my part in the affair while announcing your death. And then the next morning he went on shore to Georgetown, and came back with Robert Deal. Turns out he was also shipwrecked, made it to Grand Cayman, and someone there sold him out to Holford so he could be hanged for his old murder conviction on Grand Turk."

"The poor bastard."

"Indeed; but at least it lifted Holford's spirits somewhat, seeing how he had lost his chance at fifteen thousand pounds thanks to me, to be at least getting five hundred for Deal."

"Not much by way of consolation."

"Not at all. But given what I knew of Deal's story, and considering that he was as good as dead anyway, I was able to propose a pact that would give everyone something they wanted."

"Pray tell." He looks genuinely intrigued.

"First off I told Holford that Mr Lawes the governor could still have the benefit of a public execution to strike fear into the hearts of pirates, and Holford himself could still collect the bounty for your capture, even though you were dead. Seeing how Deal looked enough like you to fool anyone who doesn't know you well, I told Holford that we could pass Deal off as Charles Vane to His Excellency and to the judges, and all he needed to do to secure Deal's consent to this deception was to pay the five hundred pounds of Deal's bounty to his son on Grand Turk. I remembered Deal talking about the boy and figured that seeing how he was condemned to hang, he could at least leave his son some money to get started in trade, and get to see him before he died. I said that in the worst case I could pay back the money to Holford myself, seeing how desperate I was to _get Captain Vane's blood off my hands_ , but he agreed to pay it, considering that he stood to gain thirty times more."

"Knowing Rob, he would have probably accepted this even without the money, if you brought the boy to see him. Besides," he continues with a distinct hint of mischief in his voice, "given the choice between hanging in Cockburn Town as Rob Deal or in Port Royal as Captain Vane, I suspect he'd have gone for the latter just for the hell of it."

She cannot help laughing. "True; but Holford did not need to know all this. So instead of putting into Kingston as he'd planned, we went to Grand Turk, found Deal's son, and brought him on board to see his father and pay him the bounty. He asked if he could come along to Jamaica with us, he was not keen on seeing his father hang, even though he hadn't seen him in more than ten years since he was six or seven, but he wanted a chance to talk to Deal while he was alive, and figured also that his prospects of learning and practicing a trade were much better on Jamaica than on Grand Turk. So we brought him along here; I haven't seen him since he went onshore two weeks ago, though I figure he was somewhere in the crowd today, but as far as Deal was concerned, we'd held up our end of the bargain so he stuck to his story of being Captain Vane; and between him saying that, and knowing plenty about your real capers, and being generally unrepentant, and Holford and myself testifying to his identity and me holding forth about your horrible crimes and urging a speedy sentence for fear of your associates using any delay to mount a rescue, the poor man was convicted in ten days flat."

He sighs, presumably out of regret for Deal's demise; although when he speaks, his words seem to imply otherwise.

"So that's the end of Charles Vane… the rascal who got hanged twice for the same offence. Shouldn't really happen, you know."

"Yes, I know; _double jeopardy_ and all that." She smirks at him. "Except the first time you weren't really hanged..."

"…And the second time it wasn't really me," he finishes for her.

"Still, you're right, shouldn't really happen. I rather liked Vane."

His answer is delivered with an insolent grin. "I'm afraid you'll have to make do with _me_ now… whatever my name will be."

She mirrors his expression. "You'll have to do. For that matter, I haven't picked my own name yet, either. So what are we up to now?"

"First off, we wait until you take your leave of His Excellency; and then we need to get passage to Green Turtle Cay. Preferably not on an English ship."

She can see sense in picking the ship's flag, but not in the destination. "Why there?"

"That's where my chest is."

"Ah." She remembers his bragging now. "Then I suppose we can go to Louisiana next so I can collect my savings."

"Assuming you can arrange to withdraw that money from somewhere in the British colonies at a later date, it may be best to wait. After all, these waters are notorious for pirates, and there still are enough of them around."

"As you wish… so once we've picked up the chest, then what?"

"Then we wait in New Plymouth to get passage up along the east coast toward the northern colonies where I haven't made many voyages and am less likely to be recognised. If you don't object, that is."

"Why would I? So long as you don't propose that we settle in Boston..."

"There are plenty of other places. Any town where we could set up as traders would do."

"Or we could open an inn," she suggests, bearing in mind her ostensible occupation in Nassau.

"Brothel?" He squints at her.

"Not if you want me in your bed," she says with all the severity she can muster; his response is a sigh of mock defeat.

"Tell you the truth, Eleanor," he mutters, pulling her closer to him and running his hands over her body, "I've no idea what we'll end up doing; but I'm sure we'll think of something."

He stops at this, his interest having clearly shifted from talking to kissing her neck; and as she rakes her fingers over his back, she wonders distantly how it happened that her old preoccupation with planning two steps ahead has completely disappeared, so much so that she has no idea of what life might have in store for her now; but she knows exactly who she is going to spend it with.

.

 _fin_

.

 **NOTES**

These are so fucking huge, I had to split them into chapters ;)

1\. Historical facts in this chapter

The 1692 earthquake that destroyed most of Port Royal is a historical fact; as a result, citizens moved to Kingston on the Jamaican mainland and all that remained of Port Royal was Gallows Point at the end of the pier, so that criminals and spectators were often ferried there across the bay from Kingston.

Vane effectively invoking the double jeopardy concept ( _being hanged twice for the same offence_ , as in, should not be allowed to happen) may not be technically applicable, but is not anachronistic. Wikipedia sums it up as follows: "The doctrines of _autrefois acquit_ and _autrefois convict_ persisted as part of the common law from the time of the Norman conquest of England; they were regarded as essential elements of protection of the liberty of the subject and respect for due process of law in that there should be finality of proceedings."

Considering how the series brought forward Vane's execution by more than two years, to (presumably) early December 1718, and changed the location, I felt somewhat justified in taking a, well, creative approach too and had him executed a second time in Jamaica as per history, _but exactly two years before the actual date_. Or apparently executed, as the case may be. In reality he was arrested in March 1719 and spent two years in prison; the very long delay is variously attributed to general resentment of him that led people to wish he'd "rot in prison" before being hanged and to the need to assemble numerous witnesses, as Admiralty trials tended to be pretty thorough and long-running affairs, unlike the hurried, mass-spectacle versions we were given on the show.

The real Robert Deal was executed on Jamaica shortly before Vane; so in that sense I am quite close to reality. However, my backstory about his murder conviction is my invention; but I did laugh when after deciding on Grand Turk (as in Turks and Caicos) as his home thanks to it being an English-owned island that meant the shortest detour from Jamaica, I discovered that the name of its capital was Cockburn Town :P

.

2\. Overall story timeline

The list below sums up real historical events; the notes in italics to the last three entries show the tweaks I made.

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Woodes Rogers arrives in Nassau / Vane escapes by sending out the fireship on July 24 1718

Vane visits Blackbeard at Ocracoke island in early October 1718

Blackbeard is killed on November 22, 1718

Vane and Rackham part ways over the French man-of-war incident on November 24, 1718

A pirate execution is held in Nassau on December 9

Vane wins the _Pearl of Jamaica_ on December 16, 1718 (+ two more sloops before and after that)

Vane is struck by hurricane in February 1719, is marooned on an island and is taken off "a few weeks later"

Vane is brought to Jamaica ca March 1719

Spain declares war in the Caribbean March 16, 1719; launches a failed attack on Nassau in late February 1720

Woodes Rogers is in Charlestown for six weeks in 1720 after repelling the Spanish attack (wounded in a duel with a captain he knew in Nassau), goes to England in March 1721

 _* my version: Rogers is in Charlestown at the end of 1718, comes back to Nassau in in early 1719; then as per history._

Jack Rackham takes the pardon in Nassau in May 1719, steals the _William_ on August 22, 1720; is hanged Nov 18, 1720 in Jamaica while Vane is in prison there(incidentally, Jack had some pretty interesting exploits in 1719-1720; you can look up a short version on Wikipedia to get an idea).

 _*my version: Jack is caught soon after he and Vane part company (ca January 1719) and is executed ca mid/late February 1719_

Vane is executed on March 29, 1721

 _*my version: Deal is executed in Vane's place on March 29, 1719_

 _._

3\. Video recs

Earlier I mentioned and quoted Zach McGowan's online paper interviews, but to really appreciate what a charming, thoughtful, and fun guy he is, and what a huge Vane fanboy he is, I highly recommend taking a look at his Youtube interviews. Below is a collection of the 10 best clips where he talks about the show and about Vane; as you are probably familiar with FFnet's censorship of internet links, I should say here that all these start with [h.t.t.p.s] youtube dot com; the sequences below are what follows the main page address, starting from the slash.

By the way, Vane's shorter hair in my last chapter is a necessary sacrifice to avoid him being recognised (and I assure you that any Samson & Delilah parallels are unintentional), but it also conveniently mirrors Zach's post-s3 haircut that you can see in his season 3 interviews – except that I have him clean-shaven as well (personal preference, sorry).

/watch?v=9yc8fec8Tx0 (Zach & Hannah New aka Eleanor: overview of the show at the start of season 1)

/watch?v=9-UiOcDv778 (Zach & Jessica Parker Kennedy aka Max: season 2 discussion of Eleanor, love, Vane's honesty, and other stuff)

/watch?v=UPVmyvXRlIw (Zach on season 3 with Arthur Kade – season 3 overview and general chat about life)

/watch?v=JiDHCVzIWls (Zach on season 3)

/watch?v=vWVfUmHtDy0 (general chat about life and growing up in NYC, with a bit on Vane)

/watch?v=3WXA3X5d26Q (Zach on filming Black Sails at the season 1 launch event; looking positively gorgeous)

/watch?v=krqxckUliOw (companion clip to the one above, filmed at the same event)

/watch?v=Y00T4nKJyLM (Zach on pirates; filmed at the same event as the two above)

/watch?v=gDbSomN_isg (Zach fooling around as a pirate at ComicCon; short but really sweet)

/watch?v=8y6ym5pdw10 (Sexiest Man of the week; another short/sweet/funny piece)

These recommendations would be incomplete if I did not mention _Shameless_ , as in, Zach's role in it in seasons 2-3. The character he plays, Jody, is perhaps Vane's opposite, a sex addict (OK, not _that_ opposite…) toyboy, with a decidedly double-digit IQ but with a heart of solid gold; overall, a really sweet (and gorgeous, naturally) guy. The upside of the sex-addict toyboy status, as you'll imagine, is that he spends a fair chunk of the show in extreme states of undress and/or interesting situations, but also thanks to the role, he is just plain fucking hilarious – it has been ages since I laughed so hard at a TV show.

I was planning to do an edit of his scenes and put it up on Youtube; but when I uploaded an edit of season 3 while waiting to get a better copy of season 2, it immediately got blocked for copyright infringement. Sorry guys :( If you can get it on Netflix, I'd say that episodes 2x04, 2x07 and 2x09 are the sexy/funny highlights in S2, and 3x04, 3x05 and 3x07 are brilliant in S3.

And speaking of videos, I literally had to move furniture to be able to do it (don't ask ;) ), but in between finishing this story I edited the 28 hours of three _Black Sails_ seasons into a 3.5-hour cut of pure gorgeous unadulterated Vane that, I fear, is too large to post online; however, I then went one step further and cut it into a 4-minute video set to the tune of _You Know My Name_. It is not a Vane/Eleanor thing, just Charles Vane at his glorious badass best; still, if you care to take a look, it can be found at [h.t.t.p.s] youtube dot com /watch?v=30lL4_p7W9U.

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Thus concludes my 12-chapter love letter to Charles Vane, whereupon I make the ultimate sacrifice and leave him happy in the arms of another woman :P I intended to leave it to the readers to imagine what they may wish to happen to these two next, now that they are free from the shackles of their respective roles and destinies. But while I wholeheartedly encourage you to do so, I also came up with a theory of my own, which I ended up turning into a tongue-and-cheek epilogue. It is too sketchy a premise to type it out as a real fic, but I hope you find the next and final bit entertaining, if rather silly.

Thank you to everyone for reading, and especially to those of you who followed, set favourites, and took the time to comment and discuss. It means a lot to me.

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	13. Epilogue

I picked the main character's last name both for the relative similarity and as an inside-joke reference to my previous writing fandom (you will see what I mean), but beyond that, the choice has no deep significance.

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 _From the diary of Miss Charlotte Featherstone, April_ _2_ 6 _, 1719_

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I have been completely remiss with my diary entries these past two weeks; and while the initial long lapse was the result of simple laziness, I have a supremely serious excuse for not having written anything in the past three days until today. In fact, had it not been for a few brave souls on board our ship, I would not be writing this at all.

As you may recall, dear diary, we set out onboard the _Barbados Merchant_ from St John's on Antigua on March 30th, destined for New York, and with the weather generally being mild and favourable this time of year, we were expecting to reach it by now. The fact that we are about to do so tomorrow with nearly a week's delay has been due to the most extraordinary and dramatic circumstances I am going to relate here as best I can.

But first I must spare a few words for our fellow passengers, who I did not devote sufficient time to on earlier pages, sad as I was after parting with my dear parents in St John's, even as I looked forward to joining my betrothed Henry in New York. Those of us who have separate cabins of better quality, and were invited from the outset to dine with Captain Nicholls and his officers in the evenings, are eight in number; apart from my chaperone Miss Aylesbury and me, there are Mr Jenkins the parson and his wife, Mr Littleton the wine merchant, Mr Barnes the surgeon, all of whom sailed out of St John's with us, and Mr and Mrs Wayne who came aboard in New Plymouth two weeks ago. The first couple and the two gentlemen, I confess, aroused little interest in me, seeing how they were all a good deal older than myself and prone to rather tedious conversation (Mr Jenkins in particular tended to turn his speech into a series of sermons that grew progressively longer as he consumed his share of rum at the dinner table); so my attention of late was mostly taken, apart from the officers (one of whom, Lieutenant Harcourt, I confess, is young, fairly handsome and quite articulate – I pray Henry never sees this!), by the last two passengers of our small number, who I understood were a newlywed couple, which understanding has been reinforced by how they rarely leave their cabin except for dinner and late-night strolls on the quarterdeck, and if I am being completely honest, by their frequent revels of which I am aware by virtue of their cabin being next to ours, which Miss Aylesbury, regardless of their being known to be married, considers highly inappropriate.

Mrs Elizabeth Wayne is a young lady perhaps several years older than myself, of an extraordinary beauty, with silky golden hair and large and lustrous grey eyes, and a lovely colour on her cheeks. The only drawback to her beauty, if convention is to be followed, is that her skin is not as light as it would be had she not spent time in the Caribbean sun; as it happens, instead of the fashionable porcelain white it is more of a golden hue. It appears that she is the daughter of a colonial merchant, who having been recently married, is bound for New York with her husband who has business affairs there. She would have been incredibly popular with all the officers had she only deemed it possible to pay them any attention; as it is, her attention is reserved entirely and exclusively for her husband.

Now as for her husband Mr Christian Wayne, had he not introduced himself as a New York gem and spice trader, I would be certain that he was, or had been, a sea captain or even a Navy officer, what with his tall and graceful figure and his obvious knowledge of life at sea. Yet when Lieutenant Harcourt remarked on it, he explained it by the frequent need to undertake long voyages to find the best local vendors of spices and other exotic goods for purchase, and to personally accompany the particularly valuable shipments to ensure their safety and correct storage. He also explained that this latter role had required that he become fairly proficient with weapons such as swords, pistols and others not normally used by merchants, even though he appears to carry no such weapons on his person and apparently is not as proficient with the more elegant rapier, as he refused to stand against Lieutenant Harcourt in a round of practice.

That apart, his face has a most interesting aspect; while probably older than his wife, he is still young and, I daresay, extremely handsome, albeit in a manner that is more striking than genteel. His eyes I initially took to be light grey in colour, although I later perceived that it was more akin to light blue; his long aquiline nose and firm mouth would give him something of an intimidating air, except for when he is gazing at his wife, which happens frequently, when his entire appearance becomes one of the most suave charm and rapt attention. He appears to be a man of few words, although when he speaks, he does so eloquently; and his voice is both incredibly low and strangely thrilling. Unfortunately, neither he nor his wife, albeit for understandable reasons, seemed from the outset to have much desire to be in the company of others; they would enter the roundhouse shortly before dinner and would usually be the first to excuse themselves afterwards.

As I mentioned, we continued thus for the latter part of the voyage, with little variation in the daily routine due mostly to the weather; once or twice we met and hailed passing ships, and once we were put on alert when a pirate vessel was apparently spotted in the vicinity, but Captain Nicholls reassured us that evening that with the recent advances in the war against piracy made by His Excellency Governor Rogers of New Providence and his esteemed counterparts in the Carolinas and on Jamaica, what with the recent capture and execution of the notorious pirate leaders Captains Teach, Stede Bonnet, Vane, and Rackham, the seas have now become a much safer place.

For once Mr Wayne appeared to take a lively interest in the subject; as a merchant, he explained, it was extremely important to him to stay abreast of such developments, and he and his wife, whose family had apparently suffered gravely from pirate depredations, expressed great relief and satisfaction at hearing of this recent spate of hangings, even though I must confess, dear diary, that at times I find myself rather excited by the tales of these daring sea robbers.

And yet just as we were a mere 400 miles south of our destination, as per the captain's estimate, we were set upon at a treacherous hour, just after sunset and before dark, by the most notorious gang of pirates, led, as we subsequently discovered, by a certain Captain Worley. Their ship, which I was told was a brigantine, was lying concealed in the mouth of Delaware River waiting for prey, and as our ship happened to pass by they decided to strike. Obviously not content with launching a broadside from their cannons to intimidate us, which had as its only effect the redoubled efforts of our captain and crew to escape, they then decided to give chase.

It was at this moment that, having propped myself up against the partition wall which, as I am told, is called a bulkhead, separating our cabin from that of Mr & Mrs Wayne, I heard a brief but lively exchange between them that sounded akin to an argument, with Mr Wayne eager to go on deck and offer assistance to the captain and crew as an experienced seaman, and Mrs Wayne objecting due to grave worries for his safety. There would be nothing strange about hearing a discussion like this at such a desperate juncture, except that I could swear that rather than using their given names of Christian and Elizabeth, they referred to each other respectively as Charles and Eleanor, a fact that I still find rather strange unless they use these names as peculiar endearments or else agreed to travel under assumed identities, for which latter case I could not possibly discern the reason, unless, of course, instead of being married as they claimed, they have in reality eloped. But seeing how Miss Aylesbury was busy praying, I thought it best not to draw her attention to the matter; and upon reflection, I decided against ever divulging what I heard, for if they are indeed unmarried, seeing how much love they have for each other, it should not be my place to meddle with their happiness.

Having apparently convinced his wife, Mr Wayne presently went on deck, and I was subsequently told that thanks to the advice he offered the crew regarding the precise course to take evading the attackers within the bay, our ship would have succeeded in outrunning them had they not managed to accidentally damage our ship's rudder with a fortuitous (for them, that is) shot from one of their stern chasers. Deprived of its ability for precise manoeuvre, our ship ran into a sandbank and fell prey to their boarding attack (although, wary of repeating our fate, they had to use rowboats to mount it, which delayed it a great deal); not before, however, as I subsequently learned, Mr Wayne persuaded Captain Nicholls and the officers to barricade those whom he called civilian passengers, including all the women (his wife, Mrs Jenkins, Miss Aylesbury and myself), Mr Jenkins the parson, Mr Barnes the surgeon as a particularly valuable resource in case of casualties, and such valuables as we were carrying, in the hold, while the crew, the officers, Mr Littleton the wine merchant, and Mr Wayne himself made certain preparations, aided by the growing darkness, and then concealed themselves at various locations in anticipation of the boarding party.

I can only rely on the captain's account of subsequent events, seeing how the officers have been keen to divert our dinner conversation to other subjects ever since, apparently unwilling to remind us passengers of a sad experience; seeing also how Mr Littleton professes to have been in a state of too much confusion to remember much, and how Mr Wayne has instead insisted that all the credit lies with Captain Nicholls and, furthermore, that the motives that pushed _him_ to take an active role in our defence were entirely selfish, consisting as they did of ensuring the safety of his wife, the safety of the savings and valuables that they were apparently transporting to New York in a small chest among their belongings, and finally, his desire to ensure that the threat to ships in the area from worthless blackguards such as Capt. Worley (who, according to him, was not even much good as a pirate) remained a thing of the past. However, if the captain's version is to be believed, and I see no reasons to doubt its veracity, Mr Wayne was perhaps the single most important force in repelling the attack. The preparations he suggested prior to the boarding included sending men up the mainmast to judiciously sabotage the rigging and crosstrees; so that, as soon as the pirate boarding party set step on our deck, apparently unopposed by our crew, a great number of them were wounded and killed by falling timbers, and the rest were trapped by the fallen sails and shrouds, which they had not seen falling in the dark; as the officers (led by Lieutenant Harcourt) and the more intrepid of our crewmen set about restraining and fighting those of them who were still able-bodied, including their leader Captain Worley. A few of the more resilient ones escaped and went to scour the ship's cabins in search of valuables and hostages, only to be met, fought and apprehended one by one by the rest of our defenders, including Captain Nicholls and Mr Wayne, who were waiting for them at the hatches leading below deck.

All in all, what was shaping up to be a dreadful tragedy soon turned into an unfortunate yet passing incident, and while we had to spend the night in the hold as the men cleared the deck of debris and bodies and shipped off the wounded pirates and their vile captain onshore where they were to be taken into custody by the local militia, the following morning we were all able to resume our cabins and our daily routines, the only significant consequence being the delay in our arrival in New York due to the time needed to restore the rigging and hoist the sails. At the risk of sounding terribly irreverent, I daresay that I even observed the most pronounced positive effect on Mr Jenkins the parson, whose tendency to sermonise has been completely cured, or should I say disabled, by the experience; instead, for the most part, he now spends after-dinner conversation listening to others and periodically making the sign of the cross in complete silence.

And this, dear diary, concludes my thrilling account of the recent happenings; I can only add to this my bewilderment at Mr Wayne's hesitancy, upon being hailed a hero and a very able seaman, at the captain's suggestion to give him introductions to a number of Royal Navy officers among his acquaintance, so that he could obtain a letter of marque enabling him to hunt down pirates infesting colonial shores, a pursuit in which he undoubtedly could achieve great success. Instead his wife interposed to insist that the two of them were entirely resolved to maintain a sedate and orderly lifestyle upon their arrival in New York and wished nothing more than to avoid adventure on the high seas for the foreseeable future.

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PS What I particularly like about this bit is how it neatly brings our roving couple to Zach McGowan's birthplace ;)

And Capt Worley was a real pirate active between New Providence and the Eastern seaboard at that time, though he was captured and hanged in late Ferbuary rather than April.

Thanks again & take care


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